The Drinny Thing
by Colubrina
Summary: Draco Malfoy has two problems. His family reputation is in tatters and he wants to make sure he's never at the mercy of a crazed Dark Lord accomplish the second, he plans to take over wizarding fix his family's standing, he wants to marry Ginevra Weasley, pureblood and war heroine. Now all he has to do is convince her, and that might be the harder goal. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

Ginny stood at the edge of the parade route as the newly dubbed Golden Trio walked by, waving. She'd never resented Harry before but, suddenly, she did. He smiled to the crowd and slung an arm around Hermione, and Ginny knew it was an act and he hated the attention but, for the first time, she didn't care.

Her fingers crept to one of the scars she'd received during her hellish year at Hogwarts, learning what torture felt like under the hands of the Carrow twins. People spoke in hushed voices about what Hermione had endured, a secret the world knew, but no one spared a thought for the people the Trio had left behind. She knew what the cruciatus curse felt like. They all did.

It didn't bother Neville. He would duck his head and shrug off what he'd done in their absence. He didn't mind playing the supporting role, the eternal sidekick. He was happy to slip back into the greenhouse with his plants.

Ginny remembered sneaking into the shed to steal brooms because she had to learn to fly in secret. She remembered putting herself back together after she'd spent a year possessed, the only help from her family scoldings about how had she been so stupid as to trust an enchanted object and some hot chocolate.

Harry had forgotten she'd endured that. When she'd reminded him he wasn't the only one to know what it felt like to have Voldemort in his head he'd blushed and muttered, "I forgot."

"Lucky you," she'd said.

She couldn't forget. She couldn't forget the possession or having to learn things in secret her brothers did openly. She couldn't forget the feel of cruciatus or the mad laugh of Alecto Carrow calling her a blood traitor. She couldn't forget, also, that Bellatrix had gone for her personally. Bellatrix had known she was dangerous. Bellatrix had known she was powerful.

No one else seemed to remember.

She stood and clapped for her brother and his friends as they walked by and waved. Ron was half-embarrassed, half-gratified by the attention.

"You're a good girlfriend." Draco Malfoy had come up behind her. Since the war he'd cheered at the right times, and the Malfoys had given donations to the right causes. He was so, so reformed. She didn't believe it. "Standing on the sidelines and clapping for the heroes."

"Fuck you, Malfoy," she said without turning her head.

"Didn't you wait for him so patiently, too," Draco went on as if she hadn't spoken. "Keeping the home fires burning, and all that."

"The fires I lit were to try to - "

"Oh, I know," Draco said. "You waged quite the insurgency, you and Longbottom and that Ravenclaw. Not so daft after all, was she."

"There's nothing wrong with Luna."

"Which is why I'm curious why you're on the sidelines and not in the parade."

Draco Malfoy's words settled along her shoulders and she opened her mouth to retort, but everything tasted of ash and rage so she closed her lips again. He reached down and pressed a small box into her hand. Her fingers clenched around the present; this was one way they'd passed information along at Hogwarts that year. Messages had been slipped hand to hand as people kept seemingly compliant eyes on their teachers and tormentors. "What's this?" she asked him.

"A portkey to the Manor," he said. "On the off chance you're interested in being more than a follower."

She almost threw the portkey away. Who did Malfoy think he was? She wasn't some doxy to come when the pretty rich boy crooked his probably manicured finger. Then there was another reception, and her mother fussed at her until she agreed to go because it was important for her father's job that they presented a united front as a family, and she sat through another Ministry official speech so tedious even Percy looked bored. She almost ripped the hem of her second-hand dress when she stalked off to a balcony to get fresh air, and did spill the contents of her bag when she tried to find a pack of chewing gum to get the taste of the cheap table wine out of her mouth.

The box Malfoy has given her sat amidst scraps of parchment and a broken quill and a dirty handkerchief and she looked at it until she muttered, "What the hell", opened the box, and let the contents jerk her to what turned out to be a dark library.

Draco must have set the portkey to alert him if it were used because he arrived in the room, via a heavy door, only moments after she did. He raked his eyes over her dress and her cheap shoes and she felt every Knut she didn't have in that glance. All he said, however, was, "I'd rather given up expecting you."

She flung herself down into a chair of dark leather and stretched her legs out. To his credit, he didn't eye the thigh she knew she'd bared. "The wine was shitty at the We Love Our Heroes thing," she said. "I thought you might have better."

"Aren't you a little young for Ministry galas and cheap wine?" he asked.

"Weren't you a little young to let Death Eaters into Hogwarts?"

"Touché." He got a bottle from somewhere and poured her a glass. "To those of us who stopped being children far too early," he said, raising his own toward her.

She raised hers back, then took a sip. This bore about as much resemblance to what has been in her cup as she'd played dutiful daughter and awed sister not an hour before as the man in front of her bore to Harry Potter.

She must not have controlled her reaction because a slow smile played about Draco Malfoy's lips. "You like it, I guess," he said.

"I've had worse," Ginny said. "What do you want?"

He took a sip and then said, "To run the world, albeit secretly. To not be at anyone's mercy." There was a pause before he said, "I don't care to follow orders, or have to do what I'm told, any longer."

"The whole world?"

He shrugged. "Britain, at least." He took another sip. "Wizarding Britain. Can't claim to care about Muggles."

"Take over the world?" Ginny asked. "With what? Exploding Snap cards and candy quills? Or were you going to make another stab at doing it with Dark Magic and lunatics, because that worked out so well the last time somebody tried it."

Draco didn't rise to the bait. "You're very pretty," he said, and it sounded as if he were listing off the qualities of a broom he was considering buying. "Ronald was a lazy shite, happy to let Granger do his homework in exchange for carefully metered out affection and friendship, and the twins were loose canons, but you've always been the lethal one." He shrugged. "Seventh child. Makes sense."

"Pretty?" she asked.

"I know your parents are paupers, but mirrors are cheap," he said. He eyed her with a grin that almost crossed into being a smirk but didn't quite. The expression warmed his pointed face and made him look like a mischievous boy instead of a bully on the prowl. "You know what you look like."

"Blood traitor," she pointed out.

"Even better," he said. "Makes the politics work."

She waited for him to go on. "I'm not going to use candy and card games," he said. "No one, by the end, liked the Dark Lord."

"The Carrows," she said.

"Might have an accident in Azkaban," Draco said. "People don't like the Order, either," he said, returning to his original thought. "Dumbledore was skewered by Rita Skeeter, and a secret organization made up of werewolves, criminals and school boys that he headed isn't going anywhere."

"And you plan to…?"

He just took another sip and smiled at her. "Win," he said. "I plan to win." He let that boyish grin return. "And court you, last Pureblood daughter of two old families. If you'll let me."

"I don't care about that rot," Ginny said.

Draco shrugged. "I do. Is that a deal breaker for you?"

"Courting?" Ginny took another sip of the ridiculously good wine and looked at Draco Malfoy as if he'd lost his mind. "I knew your family was old fashioned but courting? What is this, 1732?"

"Is that a, 'I'm not interested'?" Draco asked her.

"I'm barely of age," she said. "Aren't we both a little young for anything as serious as what 'courting' would lead to?"

Draco's eyes got momentarily bleak. "I haven't been young since I had a Mark burned into my arm," he said. "I haven't been young since I was told to do murder or see my parents cut into pieces in front of me. I doubt you've been truly young since Tom Riddle took up temporary residence in your soul."

"How did you - ?"

"I'm good at figuring things out," he said. She considered survival from his end, and thought he must be good at a lot of things. "Since the war was over I've done a bit of thinking and I took what I learned about horcruxes, what happened your first year, and what the Dark Lord was like and put it all together."

"You're a bad idea," Ginny said, though she'd be lying to herself if she didn't find it a tempting idea. "And I don't talk about Tom."

"How are you sane?" Draco asked her.

"I don't talk about it," she said. Her voice got edges and he backed off before he cut himself on the knives and broken glass she threw out at him. The look he gave her, however, burned with a certain rage she couldn't quite decipher. It wasn't directed at her, and it was gone before she could ask about it.

"Very well," he said.

"A very bad idea," she muttered.

"The point of courting, Ginevra, would be to convince you I'm not," he said. "The point would be to convince you that you might find me to be a very good idea indeed."

"It would… Ron would blow a gasket," she said. "And I'm… I was sort of with -"

"Not that with," he said. "Not so with you didn't come here to see what I wanted." He looked down and there was a moment of raw vulnerability. "Give me a chance?"

"Dinner," she said. "One dinner."

"This Friday?" he suggested. "I'll pick you up at six?"

. . . . . . . . . .

Her mother glowered and Ron looked like he might burst as his face got rounder in absolute rage but Ginny just smiled, scooped up her bag and met Draco Malfoy on her front steps. "He's a worthless coward," Ron hissed from the door.

"But he's got nice eyes," Ginny said and took the arm Draco offered her. He'd arrived dressed in spotless black that draped over his lean hips and broke over his shined shoes. She felt like a peasant out with a prince until she met those eyes she'd called nice. She wasn't new to the glint of male appreciation that she saw there. Usually she'd seen it before sweaty hands slid under her shirt and schoolboys shoved tongues into her mouth.

"Is Spanish okay?" Draco asked her as his eyes glinted and his hands kept to themselves. "I have a reservation, but if you don't care for it, we can try our luck elsewhere."

"I've never had it," Ginny said. "I'm sure it's fine."

It was. The restaurant was hushed and filled with dark woods and rich colors and she felt horribly out of place until her dark-clad princeling held out a chair, suggested she just let him order since she didn't know the cuisine, until he asked her intelligent questions about Quidditch, until he made a cutting remark about a student they'd both known and she heard herself laughing. "You're a rotten prat," she said through the laughter.

"And a worthless coward," he said. She began to demur but he took her hand in his and said, "By the end I would have said or done anything to survive. I'm not a hero, Ginevra. I'm a survivor." He turned her hand over and ran a thumb in circles over her palm, sending shivers down her spine. "Your brother's not wholly wrong."

" I don't let Ron select my boyfriends," she said. She pulled her hand away as the waiter arrived bearing salads and busied herself with the chopped lettuce. "This is good," she said.

"I have excellent taste," Draco said.

"In restaurants you do," Ginny agreed. She met the challenging smile with a bland one of her own. "Didn't you date Pansy Parkinson for a few years?"

His smile wavered a little. "No," he said. "We've never been more than friends. Pansy is rather like a sister, I suppose. But I've never dated." A hint of bitterness crept into his voice. "I was a bit distracted those last two years at school. Didn't really have the energy for girls."

The flash of vulnerability spurred her to offer a truth of her own. "I wanted to push the memories away." Draco's hand stilled just for a moment before he took another bite of his salad. "He had beautiful handwriting," she said. She could still see it. She saw it in her dreams. She could see the looping, graceful letters appearing in her book, her precious, cursed book.

"Well, the 40s," Draco said. "They probably beat students with badly formed letters in those days. No choice but to develop good penmanship." His voice was light but the concern made her fingers tighten around her fork.

"A nice thought," she said.

"I agree," Draco Malfoy said. He steered the conversation back to lighter topics and she found herself flushed with gratitude for that consideration. By the time dessert had arrived, she'd begun to regret her fall plans.

"I'm going back," she said. "To school."

Draco didn't look surprised. "Of course," he said. "You have a year left." He nudged her with his foot. "Plan to miss me?"

She felt her mouth twitch up. "You plan to stop courting me?"

He smiled back and said very softly, "No."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - This is wholly rough drafted. Though I'll surely edit and shift things based on reader comments on FFN, it is, effectively, done but for the revising. Much love and thanks to the people on tumblr who've cheered the rough draft along the way. You made writing this fun._**


	2. Chapter 2

Graham Montague sat in Draco Malfoy's posh library and crossed his arms. "I hate the Weasleys," he said. The lamplight flickered on the ice in his tumbler and he looked first at his black-clad, coolly indifferent host, then back at his drink. "Her sodding brothers almost killed me when they tossed me in that cabinet," he said.

Draco's eyes narrowed for the briefest of moments at the mention of that wretched Vanishing Cabinet. It had nearly wrecked both of their lives. "I don't plan to marry one of her brothers," was all he said.

Marcus Flint snorted at that. "One date and you're already planning to post the banns? Isn't that a little optimistic? Especially since she's got a bit of a love em and leave em history? I give you six months, tops, before she moves on."

It might have been the wrong thing to say. "If my having a Pureblood wife straight out of the Order of the Bloody Phoenix is a problem for you, Flint, I suggest you leave." Draco didn't quite throw his drink in the man's face but the way his fingers twitched made his wishes clear. "She's got a heritage not even my mother can sneer at, she's powerful – "

"She's hot as hell."

Draco ignored the interruption. " – and she's politically expedient for making it clear I'm not interested in pursuing the, how shall I say?"

"Crazy?"

"Narrow views of my father and his cronies," Draco said. "None of us are, are we?" He looked around the room and the assemblage, to a man, shook their heads. They wanted power. Let the winners of the war have the parades and the adulation. They'd take over the _Prophet_ and the Ministry instead.

"Well," Graham said into the silence, "I'm your man, Malfoy. If you think you can convince Ginevra Weasley to marry you, knowing full well what an evil bastard you are, then I'll kiss her hand and tug my forelock and do whatever else you want from me." He picked up his drink and the ice clunked a bit as it settled. "Just don't ask me to kiss up to her brothers."

"That I can guarantee," Draco said. "Fucking weasel called me a coward as I was picking her up."

Theodore Nott smiled one of his slow smiles. He had settled himself into the darkest corner of the room when he arrived, put no ice in his drink, and kept silent until now. "And how did she react?"

"She told him I had nice eyes."

"Girl doesn't like being told what to do," Theo said. "Keep that in mind."

"Any more advice for the lovelorn?" Marcus asked. "Because, as much as I love hearing about Malfoy's personal life, I'd like to report on my own progress setting up the shell companies so we own the _Prophet_ without anyone getting wise to that, finish my drink, and go home."

"One thing," Theo said. "Don't lie to her, Draco. I know you."

"I won't," Draco said stiffly.

"Good."

They moved on to conspiracy and politics and plans and everyone but Theo had left when he lay one hand on his friends shoulder and added, "And try not to get your heart broken."

Draco shook off the touch. "I'll be fine," he said.

… … … .

Ginny got her first owl over breakfast. She'd unpacked after a Welcoming Feast that included warnings to stay away from a certain wing of the castle, not because of any dangerous magical artifacts or three-headed dogs, but because the foundation was unstable and they'd not had time to repair it since May. It had been a sobering moment. When the mail arrived, a small brown owl flew directly to her and dropped two notes next to her plate before settling down on the back of her chair and making expectant noises.

Ginny plucked a slice of bacon off a tray, broke off a bit, and handed it to the owl before opening the envelope marked, _Read this one first._

 _Forgive my presumption, but the owl is for you. I wasn't sure whether Hogwarts would have enough public owls after everything. My giant owl stands out and I thought you might prefer to not have it obvious we were exchanging letters. I might be a bit persona non grata at the moment. Yours. D._

The owl rubbed its beak against her cheek as Ginny handed it another nibble of bacon. "What a sweetie," said a girl across the table. "Mine always tries to bite me."

"Do you know where the owlery is?" Ginny asked the bird. It gave her a look as offended as she'd ever seen from an owl, snatched the rest of the bacon, and took off. She supposed that meant it did and, glancing at the second note, decided she'd read it later in private. She was putting it in her bag when the girl who'd admired the owl's temperament spoke again.

"I can't believe they had the nerve to come back," she said.

Ginny followed the other girl's look. Her eyes were fastened on the Slytherin table, a dangerous mixture of rage and disdain brewing in their depths. The students at the green and silver table huddled together. There weren't a lot of them, and the few there were hunched over their plates and didn't look around. "They didn't do anything," Ginny said.

The girl snorted. "They would have," she said. "They sure didn't help."

Something uncomfortable stirred in Ginny's gut. She decided to blame it on the full breakfast, pushed her plate away, and said, "Whatever. I need to get to class. N.E.W.T. year and I think, after last year, I'm probably behind."

"We all are," the girl agreed. She'd pulled out a textbook and was drilling herself on spell conjugations as Ginny walked out of the Hall. She was careful not to look over at the Slytherins, clustered in a small group at their table.

She waited until after dinner to read the second note. She'd spent the day alternating between feeling annoyed at the way he'd just decided she needed an owl and feeling her mouth turn up in a stupid smile whenever she contemplated the sweet bird rubbing its beak against her hair. She was unable to decide, even after hours, whether she was happy or not at the gift.

Back in her room, she pulled the curtains around her bed, tucked her feet under her, and looked at her name on the folded parchment. Ginevra Weasley. Draco had a quick, unfussy hand. His writing was nothing like the pretty loops that had charmed her when she had been eleven and while no one would have beaten him for poor penmanship, Draco wasn't going to win any awards for elegant cursive either.

She pried the wax seal open and unfolded the paper. He didn't wax poetic, or flatter her. He didn't talk about whatever plans he had either, or mention the blood prejudice he had openly admitted to. Instead he told her a funny anecdote about rabbits at Malfoy Manor who had developed a taste for his mother's expensive perennials and had taken to carefully picking their way past the plants no one cared about to devour her once treasured specimens. He'd even included a sketch of a rabbit, flower between its paws, looking unwontedly pleased with itself.

He asked when the first Hogsmeade weekend was, saying he'd meet her there and take her out again if she would permit it. If she didn't mind being seen with him in an environment sure to be unfriendly to him.

"For good reason," she muttered.

"Huh?" one of her roommates asked.

"Nothing," Ginny said. "Just frustrated with stuff already."

"This year," the voice on the other side of the curtain said in utter agreement with what she assumed was Ginny's stance on the already substantial homework load.

 _I enjoyed our night out_ , the letter concluded. _I hope you did as well_. She could almost see him taking a deep breath before he added the last line. _I already miss you._

She held her own quill for a long time before she penned a reply. _Why doesn't it surprise me that even the Malfoy rabbits are snobs_ , she wrote. She didn't know what else to say. Did she ask about his plans? Would he put them in writing? Did she mention the tiny contingent of Slytherins or how she'd already noticed the way they stayed in groups as if they expected to be ambushed? She settled on, _Thank you for the owl. She's very well behaved_. She told him the date of the first weekend she could go to the local village and told him not to be absurd, of course she had no problem being seen with him. She'd date whomever she pleased.

I miss you too.

She held the quill above the paper, those words at the tips of her fingers. I miss you too. I had a nice time with you. You're more considerate than I would have expected.

I'm worried about your plans.

She decided not to write any of that. Instead she just put down, _I'll see you in Hogsmeade?_ and folded the parchment up, set it aside, and turned to her actual homework.

… … … .

Theo Nott, who'd never been asked to hold his own arm out to get branded by a madman but who'd escorted his father to prison for war crimes, made sure to be seen clapping and cheering at every Ministry war celebration. He'd applauded the laying of cornerstones for rebuilt offices; he'd applauded parades; today he applauded the unveiling of a statue that was supposed to be of a general war hero but which bore a distinct resemblance to Harry Potter.

Harry Potter stood next to it, looking rather ill as he looked at the figure, and gritted his teeth as the mealy-mouthed politician spoke at length about sacrifice and duty. Harry Potter, who seemed to be hauled out for a lot of these events and who looked more lost at each one. War had brutalized them all but it had to have been the hardest on the so-called Chosen One.

"Do you think he's right in the head?" Graham asked.

Theo didn't take his eyes off the bloviating speaker as he answered. "Doubt it." He wasn't sure how anyone could be. If there was any lesson to be learned from Harry Potter's life, it was never catch the eye of the fates because they use their tools hard. After the war when Draco had brought them, one at a time, into his library and asked how they felt about things, Theo had said he felt like a loser, thank you very much, what did Draco expect? Harry Potter didn't look like he felt like a winner. He looked like he wasn't quite sure how he'd gotten to this point and wasn't sure how to leave and get back home. He looked broken.

Theo felt sorry enough for the man that after the last hurrah had been let into the air he walked up to the hero and asked, "Fancy a drink?" Before Potter could say no, he added, "If you get pissed enough, you could justify accidentally demolishing that statue."

"At least they didn't give it glasses," Harry Potter muttered as he allowed Theo to steer him into a nearby pub and buy a round of drinks. "I just… I looked up one day and there I was," he said after four, or maybe five, rounds. "Agreeing to some parade or other because people needed reassurance and no one quite believed I'd lived and if they just saw me they'd trust the worst was over." He took a long swallow. "Or that's what they said."

"And you believed them?"

"I just wanted to sleep," Harry said. "And Hermione seemed to think it would help. She muttered something about bread and circuses but she can be very…opinionated. And Ron wanted to do it." He looked down in to the bottom of his pint glass as if the foam clinging to the sides could be used to, if not predict the future then perhaps explain the past.

"What about the girlfriend?" Theo asked.

"Ginny?" That brought a bitter laugh out. "She hated it. No one wanted to talk to her or Neville or Luna, and she felt pushed aside." Theo waved over another round as Harry sagged in his chair. "So that ended."

"You upset about it?" Theo pressed. He was afraid he was being too obvious, Potter surely knew he and Draco were old friends, but the man just laughed again.

"It wasn't like she was my first and only love. We were together and then we weren't. Life goes on."

"Want to go destroy that statue?" Theo asked.

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco nearly throttled him when he heard. "You took Potter out," he said. "Fucking Harry Potter? War hero and… You two were almost caught destroying that memorial. Fucking hell, Theo. I thought you were the subtle one."

Theo just shrugged. "He's a pawn that can be captured," he said. "And the statue was aesthetically offensive."

"Your face is aesthetically offensive," Draco muttered.

"I'm off to see what other fruit are ripe," Theo said.

"Arsehole," Draco said.

Theo blew him a kiss from the doorway and Draco rolled his eyes and pretended to duck out of the way. "Who are you after?" he asked.

"The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat," Theo said and shut the door behind him.

"You are such an arsehole," Draco yelled after his friend before he added in an undertone. "The owl and the pussycat. What the fuck does that even mean?"

… … … …

"You get mail almost every day." Ginny looked across the table at breakfast and shrugged, not planning to respond to the obvious statement until the girl added, envy in her voice, "Is it from Harry?"

"No," Ginny said. She pushed the letter with its by now very familiar scrawl into her bag. "Harry and I aren't together any more."

The girl made noises about how sorry she was to hear that, but Ginny had stopped listening. She was going down to Hogsmeade today to see a boy she'd gone out to one dinner with and who'd been charming her for weeks with anecdotes from his life that revealed nothing other than a sly and somewhat mean sense of humor. Draco Malfoy saw no one, went nowhere, or so she'd think if she took his missives at face value. He had pointed things to say about articles in the _Prophet_ , and asked about her classes, and once sent her flower petals he claimed to have rescued from one of his estate's many aggressive rabbits. He didn't shower her with expensive presents. He didn't ask for anything. He didn't tell her anything. He just made her smile each day and finished every letter with, 'I miss you.'

She wasn't sure what to think.

Hermione would have told her to rip them up, that the bastard was after something.

She'd asked Luna whether she'd been able to forgive the students who'd been on the other side of the war, or on no side at all. "Could you ever trust someone who was so wrong when it mattered?" she'd asked.

Luna had leaned into the palm of her hand and thought until the silence has become so uncomfortable Ginny regretted having asked. "I think when people show you who they are, you should believe them," Luna had said at last.

Ginny hadn't been sure what that meant. She still wasn't sure what that meant. Now, with honey from her morning tea lingering on her lips and a walk down to greet a Death Eater waiting in her feet, she glanced over at the Slytherin table where the students were careful not to look at anyone outside their safe circle. Would she be just as ostracized by dinner? She scooped up her bag, excused herself from her Housemate, still babbling on about Harry, and went to the corridor where she could tuck herself into a nook and read before she left Hogwarts.

 _It's ridiculous of me to write when I'll see you in a few hours. I'm afraid you'll refuse to speak to me again after today, though, so I'm indulging in the little pleasure of writing to you while I still may. Yours. D._

She felt a touch on her shoulder and whirled around, expecting the nosy bint from breakfast come to ask her yet more questions about the Boy Who Lived. It was Luna, however, and she said, "Are you ready to go?"

"Sure," Ginny said. "Let's go get sweets."

"Too much sugar is bad for you," Luna said. "Bitter truths go down better as they are."

Ginny snorted. "I'll be sure to ask for bitter truth flavored candy quills then."

"Do they make those?" Luna asked as they began the walk down to Hogsmeade. "I wouldn't think they'd be a big seller."


	3. Chapter 3

Draco was waiting for her just outside the village. He reminded her of a Japanese ink painting she had seen in a book once where a slash of black became an entire granite cliff. He had his hands thrust down into his pockets and he slouched with insouciant, aristocratic ease, his black attire a brutal line that stood out in sharp relief against the softer colors of the surrounding countryside.

"Oh, good," Luna said. "You have a friend." She waved to Draco, patted Ginny on the arm, and added, "I'm meeting someone. Will I see you back at the castle?"

Ginny agreed that they would meet after the outing, then Luna was gone, drifting off like fog when the sun rose.

"You look nice," Draco said.

Ginny glanced down at her school uniform and tried not to make a disparaging sound. She wasn't in her academic robes, of course, because she wasn't in class or at a meal and it had always struck her as pretentious to wear them when she didn't have to. Plus, hers were patched and worn. At least her dowdy gray skirt had been purchased for her, even if it had been second hand. It was clear that everything on Draco's body had been made especially for him. "I look like a schoolgirl," she said, swallowing any questions she had about how much it had to cost to get bespoke shirts.

"A pretty schoolgirl," Draco corrected her. "Where do you want to go?"

"Madam Rosmerta's?" Ginny suggested.

Draco, however, shook his head. "Can't," he said. "Not allowed back in. Lifetime ban."

"Aberforth's?" Ginny asked but he shook his head at that suggestion as well, and looked slightly embarrassed. Perhaps, she thought, even ashamed.

"I'm afraid that this is one of the unfortunate complications of being involved with me," he said. "There are a number of places that I will never be welcome."

Though the idea made her stomach lurch, Ginny put forth the suggestion of the nauseatingly pink teahouse that most students went to on dates and, with a bit of a grimace, Draco agreed. It certainly wasn't the fancy restaurant he had taken her to, but they were offered a table and overly sweetened tea and dry cakes were set in front of them. Draco asked her polite questions about her classes until the waitress had moved far enough away that he could cast a charm to muffle the sound of their conversation. Then he took her hands in his, brushing a thumb over a curse scar on her wrist from one of her encounters with the Carrows, and said, "You do know that I'm not a good person, right?"

"That seems a little harsh," Ginny said. "Are you planning on going on a murderous rampage that I ought to know about? Making horcruxes of your own?"

He gave her a slightly wan smile and seemed to brace himself. "No," he said. "I just plan to take over the press and the government with the help of friends."

This, she thought, was what he hadn't said in his letters. This was the lure of not being just a follower he'd dangled to get her attention. This was why he thought she might not be willing to let him write to her after today; he had no idea whether she'd agree to join him or whether she'd push him aside.

She sat and, pulling one hand away from him, picked up her cup and sipped at the horrible tea, not sure which she should do.

"With violence?" she asked after a bit she was sure felt agonizingly long to the man across the table.

Draco was very good at controlling his reaction to things that people said. Ginny had already noticed that he excelled at presenting a completely bland countenance to the world. That altered when she mentioned violence. His eyes became momentarily bleak and the fingers he still had on one of her hands tightened. "No," he said. "A bloodless coup."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I've had quite enough violence," he said. "I do believe I mentioned that I am a coward, Ginevra. I'd prefer to never see a person die in front of me again."

She felt a sudden urge to cup a hand along that angular jaw and tell him it would be okay. It seemed absurd to want to comfort a man planning revolution, but the impulse was there anyway. "That wasn't what I meant," she said. "Why not just let things be?"

"It's complicated," he said. He looked away from her face and glanced around the increasingly crowded teahouse. "People are staring," he said. "If you wish to preserve your reputation, I would suggest removing your hand from mine. Slapping me probably wouldn't be completely amiss."

Ginny glanced behind her and saw that they were indeed collecting stares. People put their heads together and whispered. A few even pointed. She half rose in her seat and watched his grey eyes become shuttered and unfeeling. He thought she planned to do it. She found herself offended that, after weeks of correspondence, he thought that she would walk away from him because of a few stares. She'd been possessed and then handed hot chocolate. She had endured hell and then been told she wasn't old enough to fight. She had survived a battle and then been told she wasn't one of the important heroes. She carefully slid the tea things to the side so she wouldn't drag her shirt in the liquid and pressed her lips to Draco Malfoy's.

At first kisses went, it failed. He slid a hand behind her neck but kept his mouth chastely closed, even when she licked at his lower lip. When she pulled back, he tossed a few coins on the table, far more than were necessary to pay for the food they hadn't eaten, and said, "So that's how you want to play it."

"Maybe a walk?" she suggested.

"Someplace more private would not be unwelcome," he said.

As they left the tea house she felt a hand shove her, but when she turned, ready to battle the offender, everyone seemed focused on getting to a table or placing an order and she couldn't tell who had done it. Draco held the door for her and she exited out into the fall air.

They walked in silence. A few steps out from the pink monstrosity of the shop, Ginny reached her hand over to Draco's and laced her fingers through his. When she glanced up at him, his cool, amused smile met hers. They both knew, as did every student over fifteen, all the secluded spots in Hogsmeade, and it didn't take long to settle themselves against a tree, shielded from view by a high stone wall.

Ginny tugged him closer to her until she felt every line of his body pressed up against hers. Like her, he was lean in the way all Seekers were, with long limbs and a core made strong by hours spent on a broom. Like her, his hands had the district pattern of callouses you got when you spent those hours gripping a handle, bent low against the wind. He slid a hand along her back to stabilize her and she pushed herself upward until she brushed her nose against his. "Where were we?" she asked.

"I was explaining why you should be wary of me?" Draco asked, though he ran his tongue over his lips in a way that suggested his thoughts had moved on from setting forth the details of his plans, assuming he planned to share anything resembling a detail, to other things. Ginny rather suspected he didn't plan to share much.

"Mmm," she said. She could be patient. She could wait to find out details. She kissed him again, and expected him to take more advantage now that they were alone and it was more obviously a _kiss_ and not a rude gesture toward onlookers. His breath caught a bit, but that was it. He didn't push his tongue into her mouth or even open his lips. She pulled back a bit and looked at him. She could feel a hot blush rising in her cheeks and cursed the skin that revealed everything. "I'm sorry," she muttered. "I assumed - ."

She tried to step back from him but he tightened his grip. "I'm doing it wrong, aren't I?" he asked.

"I," she started, then stopped and tried to think. He hadn't dated Pansy. He'd been too consumed by the war to date at all. "Draco," she asked, not sure how to proceed. "Are you…?"

"Inexperienced?" He turned the word into the lightest of quips. "I suppose you might say that."

She lifted a hand and ran it along his face the way she'd wanted to earlier. "How inexperienced?" she asked. His skin was smooth under her hand; he'd shaved right before coming to see her and she could see a tiny scar alongside the edge of his nose. Probably from a Quidditch match, she thought, just some little thing he hasn't bothered to properly heal. Of course, it could be the remnant of a much darker injury. She knew about those.

"A pretty girl kissed me in a tea shop once," he said, interrupting her thoughts.

She inhaled and put her other hand on his other cheek and studied him. "Does it bother you that I'm not," she said, stumbling over the words a little, "not inexperienced."

She expected him to say yes. She'd been popular and vivacious and had liked boys. She'd liked a lot of boys, and she'd used them to push away memories of the first boy who'd set out to charm her. Her brothers had certainly let her know they thought she got around too much, moved on too quickly. Ron would explore the depths of Lavender's throat over breakfast, then complain he'd caught her kissing Dean Thomas at lunch. Double standards had been a thing in her life as long as she could recall.

"No." The word was very soft, breathed out against her skin by a man who had lowered his head so he didn't have to meet her eyes. "I just… I know how to fix a Vanishing Cabinet and I know how to use the Imperius Curse and what it feels like to cast the Cruciatus, but… I can make men follow me, Ginny. I could probably get them to die for me if I wanted. There's a knack to it, even when you're a monster, and I watched in silence those years and learned, but you…" The voice got the false air of unconcern again. "Kissing girls wasn't covered in Death Eater meetings, I'm afraid. No real example to emulate."

"We both know such awful things," she said. She lifted his face back up again and pressed her lips to one side of his mouth and then the other. "I think this is more of a learn by doing activity," she said. "Practice makes perfect."

Now that she knew his hesitation wasn't borne of indifference or distaste, she let herself enjoy the sweetness of kissing a man who seemed to savor every touch and didn't grope or fumble with the catch of her bra, eager to move on to other delights. When she slipped her tongue between lips he'd finally opened, his fingers dug into her back and his desire became obvious but he still kept it to just a kiss. When she pulled away again, he was gasping for air and his pupils were dilated. "You're an excellent teacher," he managed to get out, "but more practice wouldn't hurt."

She couldn't find fault with that reasoning. When they finally sat on the cold ground, mouths swollen, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her onto his lap. "I'm going to miss you even more now," he said. "The next Hogsmeade day can't come quickly enough."

She leaned against him and felt his heart pounding, and considered what she wanted to ask. "You know I'm not just… it's not just kissing I've done. Does that - ?" She stopped.

She could feel the way his body became more rigid against hers. "Your past really isn't my business," he said. "I'm sure you've… a gentleman doesn't ask."

The ending of that seemed a bit forced so she pushed again. "Including with Muggle-borns."

That elicited a sigh. "Which you know I have… I don't have any intention of making up to Granger but, as I said, your past is your business, not mine."

She let her head settle against his shoulder. "What's your problem with Muggle-borns, anyway?" She meant more than she asked. Was his plan to stage what he called a bloodless coup riddled with intent to push anyone but purebloods out of power? Had he liked the way the Ministry had snapped wands? Did he want to drive people out of their world? She could live with a preference for dating where he felt comfortable. She didn't think she could accept any of the other thoughts racing through her head, headlong towards the worst possible outcome.

"They," he hesitated. "Change is bad," he finally settled on. He seemed to realize that sounded ridiculous and petulant so he tried again, "The same Ministry that told me to love Muggle-borns told us Voldemort wasn't really back when he was sitting in my front parlour. I'm a bit suspicious of the mandate as a result."

"It's hardly Hermione's fault the Ministry is staffed by - "

"Maybe," he said. "She's there now, though, isn't she? Supporting their post-war rebuilding efforts?"

"But - "

"It's all a lie." He sounded frustrated. "They lied to all of us. It's always been corrupt, Ginevra. My family's been a force in that for generations, so, trust me, I know. But… they lied and it wasn't about slipping good seats at a Quidditch match to a man who got your son out of trouble. It was smoke and mirrors and games to pretend a madman didn't exist and we all paid for that." She could hear birds making a racket in a tree nearby and the distant sounds of other student laughing as they walked the streets of Hogsmeade. "No one cared what happened to us. Not to you, not to me, not even to Potter."

She waited in silence to see if he'd go on and he fianlly added, "The great champion of the Muggle-borns was Dumbledore, you know, and he wasn't… he wasn't a fan of mine. He let me… I'm a bit biased against anything he liked."

Ginny closed her eyes and tried to reconstruct his past. Dumbledore hadn't been kind to Harry. It didn't surprise her to learn he'd been even less so to others.

"So you want to be in power because - "

"If we trust the Ministry, it will just happen again. Another Dark Lord. A Grindelwald. A Vo… Voldemort."

She stood up and made a show of stretching. "I should get back."

"Of course." He pulled himself to his feet and began brushing bits of grass off his trousers. "I understand."

She cocked her head at him. "You plan to walk me up to the gates?"

His hands paused for a moment in their search for errant bits of debris that had had the audacity to attach themselves to him before he said, "I would be delighted."


	4. Chapter 4

She was at dinner before she felt the consequences for being publicly seen with a known – though found not guilty in his trial – Death Eater. Three girls moved away from her at the Gryffindor table. One spilled a glass of juice on her robes before apologizing with a smirk that suggested she wasn't wholly sincere in her words of regret. Ginny hexed her and, as bats flew from the table, asked in a low voice exactly why anyone felt they had the right to determine whom she spoke to.

"It's _Draco Malfoy_ ," the girl who'd gushed over Harry Potter just that morning said. It was clear she thought the explanation unnecessary. "He let Death Eaters in."

"He killed Dumbledore," another girl said.

"He didn't, and he was under a death threat," Ginny said. It didn't matter, though. Truth wasn't what they were interested in and they made a show of turning their backs and starting a loud conversation about fashion. Ginny supposed she couldn't blame them. Her own gut churned when she thought about Draco-the-Death-Eater. Draco-the-Whatever-Else-He-Was wasn't much better. He had plans, they weren't above board, he was still a biased, prejudiced arse. He made her nerves flutter, and her heart race, and he tasted of storms and rage and fear and lessons better off unlearned.

It was a taste she knew.

She gathered her things up and left without talking to any of her Housemates. The girl in green who stopped her in the hall almost got the hex that still hovered on the tip of Ginny's tongue, but she controlled herself and said, more shortly than was polite, "What?"

The girl tipped her head toward the Hall. "Welcome to the outcast side," she said.

Ginny narrowed her eyes. "I almost ran the insur – "

"Doesn't matter," the girl said. "What have you done for them this week?" She hoisted a bag up to her shoulder and added, "Tell Malfoy I said hello," before she walked off.

"I don't even know who you are," Ginny muttered at the girl's back.

Luna found her there, still staring at the retreating Slytherin. "Have fun?" she asked.

"I suppose," Ginny said. "It was educational." She looked back toward the Hall and muttered, "Very educational," under her breath. "Who did you see?"

Luna began to walk through the corridor, skipping every second or third step so Ginny had to walk quickly to keep up with her. "Someone I fed the thestrals with once," she said. "He owled me."

"A friend?" Ginny asked. She hadn't realized Luna had any friends outside their immediate group.

Luna seemed to consider the way she did and said before they parted, Luna to go up to her tower, Ginny to go to hers. "Not then," she said. "Now, maybe. He wants something, of course, but that doesn't mean he can't be a friend." She smiled at Ginny. "What does Draco want?"

Ginny laughed at that and shook her head. "Just to run the world," she said.

"It's good to have goals," Luna said before she skipped away.

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco brushed his fingers over the letter and let out a breath he hadn't quite realized he was holding. She was still writing. He'd told himself it was all about her political expediency, and that it didn't hurt she was pleasant to look at. She was well-known as a figure who'd stood against the reign of terror at Hogwarts and her family, notorious blood traitors that they were, were also now outed as members of Dumbledore's secret society.

Draco had mixed feelings about Dumbledore. Mostly bad, but slightly guilt-ridden.

Whatever Dumbledore had been, the Weasleys were heroes. Feted, lauded, beloved heroes, and they had one daughter. One pureblooded, beautiful daughter who would do him a world of good if she stood by his side.

He'd told himself that was all it was.

That she laughed at his spiteful little asides – really laughed in the way he'd seen girls do around Blaise, so that her eyes crinkled up and he knew he'd delighted her – had just been the cherry on the sundae of his planned courtship. He'd missed her for that immediately. He'd told himself it was good to genuinely like the girl you set your sights on; Merlin knew he'd seen plenty of marriages based on less. Then he'd started to look for her notes each day. It wasn't that she said much; she really didn't. Nevertheless, he found himself tracing his fingers over the looped G of her signature and wondering whether she really missed him or whether she was just being polite.

Theo had known, of course. The bastard always did. But he'd shrugged and kept his own counsel and now Draco sat, having kissed a girl until he ached, with a note waiting for him.

His hands didn't shake when he opened it because he'd learned to show nothing, not even in what you thought was private. People pushed their way into any sanctuary and known weaknesses got you killed, or nearly. Even fear she'd written to say that after his revelations that day she had reconsidered their relationship didn't break the veneer of control that kept his movements, other than that rogue exhale, steady. It wasn't until he read the note that he let himself shake with relief for just a moment.

She'd been happy to see him. She looked forward to the next Hogsmeade Day but maybe he could bring a picnic so they could avoid Madam Puddifoots. The owl was a useful little thing, and sweet. Did he want to face Hogwarts to come to the first Quidditch match? She was Seeker and Captain this year, though she would understand if perhaps he'd prefer to avoid the hostility somewhat rampant at Hogwarts.

 _I would very much enjoy seeing you play,_ he wrote. _I might even cheer, albeit very quietly, for Gryffindor._

He decided not to address the reference to hostility. He knew people hated him. He wasn't surprised she'd become the recipient of the overflow.

Sometimes he resented the part he'd been forced to play by lineage and circumstances more than others.

 _I miss you. Take care. Yours, D._

 _. . . . . . . . . ._

Theo lounged in one of the chairs in the library at Malfoy Manor that had been turned into the de facto headquarters of their plotting. He dangled what might have been a necklace from his hand and looked at it with satisfaction all out of proportion to the thing he was holding.

"I didn't realize you had a little sister," Graham said. He had a folder in his own hand and was waiting with barely concealed impatience for Theo to get on with it. His foot tapped against the ancient and worn carpet, and he rolled his eyes as the lanky man opposite him smirked.

"Don't," Theo said as he passed the necklace from hand to hand. "I'm an only child."

"Then what's with the craft project?" Graham asked. It was a fair question. The necklace had bottle caps, a wine cork, the tooth of some animal or other, and what looked to be a very large opal all strung on a chain. "Have you taken up some kind of occupational therapy to handle your war trauma?"

"It's a present for a girl," Theo said. He quirked a smile at Graham. "You do know what those are, don't you?"

"Not people who like homemade gifts, in my experience," Graham said. "Is that tooth from a Kneazle?"

"Not sure what it's from," Theo said. "I picked it up in a shop in Knockturn. Guy claimed it was from a baby basilisk, but he might have been less than wholly truthful."

"You think?" Graham muttered. "Between you and Draco over there, all gaga over the Weasley girl, you'd think this was a meeting of bachelors in love, not a bloody conspiracy."

Draco cleared his throat and Graham Monague stilled. "Since we are a conspiracy," Draco said, "even if one with a few members who are rather shortsighted, maybe we could move on. How goes the _Prophet_ project?"

Graham handed his folder over and Draco flipped through the documents while the other man spoke. There were five layers of shell companies obscuring the fact, but they owned the paper outright, a move accomplished without a single ripple or question from anyone. Rita Skeeter had received an anonymous tip about Kingsley Shacklebolt and young girls and was preparing even as they spoke to pounce on the new Minister.

"Is it true?" Theo asked. He sounded only mildly interested as his fingers toyed with the point of the tooth on his necklace. "He always stuck me as squeaky clean."

"Of course it's not true," Graham said. He was annoyed. Hours spent combing through every record he could find had turned up not so much as a single misuse of Muggle artifacts accusation. Kingsley Shacklebolt was as honorable as they came. "But three girls will swear to it under oath."

"Veritaserum?" Draco asked.

Graham shook his head. "Two are natural occlumens and the third has built up an immunity thanks to a mother who questioned her every move as a child."

"Traceable connections?"

"All are Slytherin," Graham admitted. They didn't dare move out past their own House and he knew it created a problem. A clever prosecutor would question why all the charges brought against the fine, upstanding members of the Order were only substantiated by people from the House who had the most to gain by slithering back into power. It helped that there were so few people who really needed toppling. No one would let Molly Weasley run anything, though she'd probably be good at it, and Arthur might have been a hero but everyone who'd ever worked with him considered him a buffoon who could be bought on the cheap. He'd smoothed more than one Muggle artifact misuse complaint over in exchange for gifts and favors. Graham had seen them all as he searched for evidence Kinglsey had done something – anything – wrong.

"We need people from other Houses," Theo said. He didn't even seem to be paying attention to the discussion. "Just for the optics. They don't even have to do anything, we just need them to be seen with us to dilute any hint that we're a closed group."

"Could you put that monstrosity down and come up with some suggestions on how to get them?" Graham demanded. "It's easy to say we need to recruit a broader group of people but I don't see Neville Longbottom popping over for tea anytime soon."

"No," Theo agreed. "Longbottom's right out." He stood up and looked at Draco. "Mind if I borrow an owl to send this off? I'm meeting a friend to apparate over to a quick Quidditch match on the sly and don't have time to go home first."

Draco waved a hand irritably at Theo. "Do what you want," he said. "You will anyway."

"Why do you put up with him?" Graham asked after the man had left. "He's going to a Quidditch match?"

Draco set the folder aside and shrugged. "Theo's always got plans," he said. "The prick. Good work on the _Prophet_. And I'm impressed with your Kingsley plan. He'll be tarred and feathered within a month."

"Who do you plan to put in power in his place?" Graham asked. He put his fingers up and made air quotes as he said 'power'.

Draco just shrugged again. "As long as it's not a war hero, I don't think it matters," he said. "I don't want the spotlight - ."

"No one tries to assassinate the guy in the shadows," Graham agreed. Neither of them – none of them – wanted glory and fame. Power exchanged in smoke filled back rooms no one asked about suited them just fine. "So… let them pick whoever they want?"

Draco smiled. "If we don't like the guy, we'll get rid of the next one too," he said. "Maybe next time, it'll be drugs."

Graham laughed. "You are such a bastard," he said.

. . . . . . . . . .

Harry tried to shut the door quietly behind him when he slipped back into Grimmauld Place but it didn't matter; Ron and Hermione were waiting for him.

"Where have you been?" Hermione demanded. Harry looked from her to Ron. She had her hands on her hips as if he were a child caught sneaking in past curfew. He'd seen that look on her face at Hogwarts when he'd come back from adventures under his invisibility cloak before she'd become more immune to his rule-breaking. Ron stood behind her, and if Harry had expected Ron to look even faintly embarrassed by Hermione's bossiness he'd have been disappointed. He'd known Ron would be upset, however, so he just sighed.

"I was out," Harry said. He eyed the pair. "I wasn't aware I had to get permission to come and go."

"It's just," Ron began then huffed out in exasperation. "There was a lunch with Kingsley and – "

"And I didn't want to go," Harry said.

"These things are important, Harry," Hermione said. "This post war world is still very unsettled and Kingsley is trying to reassure the population that – "

"Excuse me, Hermione," Harry said. "But I don't care." He tried to push his way past her to so could make his way up the stairs to his room but she stepped in front of him and blocked his way.

"Harry," she tried again, "I don't think you realize how crucial this window of time after the war is. Things are still quite destabilized. I wouldn't go so far as to say there's a power vacuum, exactly, it's just that – "

"What part of 'I don't care' didn't you understand?" Harry asked. He glanced over at Ron. His best friend stood with his arms crossed, the curtained portrait of Walburga Black behind him waiting to spew forth her screaming hate. "I'm sorry, mate," he said. "I just don't want to be the Ministry's show pony anymore."

Hermione sniffed. "How much have you had?" she asked. At Harry's look she let out an exasperated noise as if she finally understood and it was annoying – so annoying – but nothing that couldn't be handled. "Last time you went drinking you decided to smash up that memorial statue. This time you decide you don't want to help Kingsley. I think beer is – "

"I had one pint," Harry said. "Lay off, Hermione. I'm not a child and I think I'm allowed to have a beer with a mate at an afternoon Quidditch match."

"What mate?" Ron demanded. "We're your mates, Harry."

"No one you know," Harry said. He tried to step past Hermione again and, again, she blocked him. "Someone who doesn't have any interest in making sure I walk in every parade."

"Harry," Hermione began again but he finally pushed his way past her so he could climb the stairs.

"I'm tired," he said. "I've been sitting in the sun for hours and I want to go lie down. If there are any more rules of post-war conduct you'd like to lecture me on, can it wait until later?"

. . . . . . . . . .

Ginny snatched the Snitch from the air just before the Slytherin Seeker grabbed it and laughed with delight. She held her hand up so anyone who missed her catch would see the game was over and the lions had won again. The cheers in her ears were sweet, sweet music, and sweeter still was the sight of Draco Malfoy, his hand settled on the very new wood railing of the Slytherin stands, smiling at her.

The sweetness lasted until she landed, sweaty and victorious, to group with teammates who didn't quite turn their backs on her but didn't pull her into the group hug she expected either. "Glad to see you're still flying just for us," one of the Beaters said. "I was worried."

Ginny's fingers tightened on the Snitch still in their grasp. "What does that mean?" she asked.

The girl shrugged. "It's perfectly clear," she said. "Anyone willing to date a Death Eater might throw a game for the snakes."

Ginny clenched her jaw. "Do you want to say that again?" she asked the girl. "Because I'd be happy to put you on the injured list."

"Planning to bench me for not liking your boyfriend?"

"Planning to pound your face into the ground for suggesting I'd play to lose," Ginny said. "You'll be on the injured list because you'll be _injured_."

There was a long moment while her teammates stared at her then one said, "Let's hit the showers. There's a party to go to." They took off, arms around one another, and good cheer over their win slowly reclaiming them until loud laughter filled the air. Ginny watched them walk off then turned to look back up at the stands. Students had begun to wind their way down the stairs, but Draco still stood, watching her. She grabbed her broom and, with a sour look toward the door that had closed, she flung herself into the air.

"Nice catch," Draco said when she reached him.

She shrugged and settled down on the platform next to him. Students who hadn't yet left became suddenly interested in tying their shoes or fumbling for things in bags. "I've got something for you," she said as their audience pretended not to listen.

"Oh?"

She weighed the Snitch in her hand then tossed it to him. He grabbed it from the air with a sure movement and looked at it. "Your teammates seemed less - "

"It was fine," she said before he could finish his comment.

"Can I give the winner a kiss?" Draco asked her.

She glanced over at the Gryffindor stands where some people were openly staring. "I'm insulted you have to ask," she said.

Draco tried to run a hand through her hair, but it had long ago come loose from the plait she'd started the game with and the windswept tangles defeated him, so he just cupped the whole back of her head and pulled her mouth to his. She wrapped her own arms around him and smirked at the knowledge his black-clad perfection was getting soiled with the sweat of the game, but, as the kiss went on, it was clear he didn't care, clear he was happy to be dirtied at her hands. The kiss was as sweet as flying. It was catching the Snitch. It was the rush of every victory she'd known and, when at last they parted, he whispered, "Good game," in her ear.


	5. Chapter 5

Luna found her sitting with her back up against a stone wall in a third floor corridor. The scortch marks from the war lingered and the black soot was probably all over the back of her jumper where she'd leaned against it; some things weren't important enough to clean up so they stayed like echoes of that year in hell. Luna sat next to her and stretched her feet out so they'd impede anyone who passed and began to do a series of toe wriggles that might have been an obscure exercise or might have just been Luna wiggling her toes.

"Sometimes it seems like last year was easier," Ginny said.

"Moral ambiguity is ambiguous," Luna said. Ginny supposed the statement counted as agreement.

"I was good," she said. "Angry, hurt a lot, but good. I knew who the good guys were – us – and the bad guys."

"Draco?" Luna asked.

"I was thinking of the Carrows and Snape," Ginny said. She thought about that and then let out a raw little laugh as she contemplated the hands that had cast their share of hexes. "I suppose I didn't know as much as I thought I did. Still seemed easier at the time to just hate them, especially Snape."

"People can be good and unpleasant," Luna said.

"Or pleasant and bad?" Ginny asked.

"That too," Luna agreed. "Or pleasant and scared." She reached down into her bag and pulled out two halves of an only slightly crushed sandwich. "Dinner?" she asked, holding one of the halves to Ginny.

Ginny took the offering and bit into it and they sat in silence for a while, looking into the charred hole that had been their hiding place for a year. "Draco and his friends are why that ended up destroyed," Luna said after she finished eating and began brushing crumbs off the non-regulation skirt she had on. "Theo told me. While the rest of them were locked in the dungeons away from everything they were still in it."

"Theo?" Ginny asked. She reached out a finger to touch the classical Luna necklace the other girl wore, made unusual only by the substantial milky rock that sparkled in the middle. "Is he the one who gave you this?"

"Mmm," Luna said. "They panicked and set the place on fire. No place left to hide, so I guess it's good we won."

"Is that a Kneazle tooth?" Ginny wanted very much to move on from thinking about that day, for all she'd been staring into the past until Luna arrived.

Luna pulled the necklace off and looked at the tooth in question. "I don't think so," she said. "The shop apparently told him it was from a baby basilisk, but it looks more like a dog's tooth to me."

"Why would anyone give you a basilisk tooth?" Ginny couldn't quite recall who 'Theo' was, though she'd gathered he was one of Draco's friends and a Slytherin. She didn't think much of his gift giving prowess based on this necklace with its dubious tooth; she thought of her own little owl with a fond crinkle of her nose. Draco might be complicated but he'd done well with that one.

"He didn't," Luna said. "My guess is Labrador retriever. Maybe mastiff?"

"Luna." Ginny was used to her friend's tendencies to be either very specific or too vague to follow.

"I suppose he thought I would like it," she said. "Stab away anything that came after me, even if only as a symbol." She let the tip of the tooth poke at her finger. "Kill Dark things."

"Dangerous thing to have around," Ginny said.

"Good thing he's only a puppy, then," Luna said. She stood up. "Ready to go?"

Ginny sighed and followed the example.

. . . . . . . . . .

The shoves became harder and more frequent, but every time Ginny turned, first with her firsts out and later with the wand she took to carrying, no one was looking at her, everyone was striding on their way to class or dorms, there was no perpetrator to attack. She'd be left standing there, wand pointed at no one.

She set that wand next to her plate at breakfast one morning and snagged a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ that had been abandoned next to the pitcher of pumpkin juice. She looked at the main article. Ron and Hermione stood in what was probably a posed shot talking earnestly to Kingsley Shacklebolt. Hermione had her 'I know best' face on, and Ron was nodding his agreement to whatever the pair was talking about. Three war heroes at work rebuilding the nation. Three people you can trust. She wondered where Harry was.

"Your brother must be so ashamed," one of her Housemates said. Ginny eyed the girl and wondered if she'd ever patched her together last year after a class with the Carrows. She didn't think so, but people looked different when fear and blood had been replaced by a smug smile, and she'd done so much rough healing it all blurred together. "He's out there risking himself as an Auror," the girl went on, "trying to capture the last of the Death Eaters and Dark wizards and here you are, dating one."

"Draco was found not guilty," Ginny said. She kept her voice level. "He's already had his trial."

"Whatever," the girl said. "We all know he did stuff."

Ginny slid some cold bacon from one of the platters onto her plate and poured herself a drink. Was the toast worth eating, she wondered even as she spooned scrambled eggs out. She had just decided probably not when another student spoke up. "I don't think they should just prosecute Death Eaters," she said. "We all know there were lots of people who never got that Mark who supported you-know-who."

"Voldemort?" Ginny asked. "Kinda pale, no nose, red eyes?"

The look the girl gave her was scathing but Ginny just tipped her head to the side and said, in as innocent a tone as she could manage, "Just making sure. 'You-know-who' isn't that clear and it's pretty obvious you aren't the sharpest tool in the shed."

"They should go after the sympathizers," the girl said. The way she looked at Ginny made her meaning plain.

"And just how would you determine that?" Ginny asked. "Half the Ministry claimed he wasn't back even after it was obvious. Most of the students still thought Harry was a liar when I was learning how to fight. Do people who never joined the D.A. count as – "

"Sorry," the girl said, though it was clear she wasn't.

Ginny didn't let it go. "I don't think you really ever joined Dumbledore's Army, did you?" she asked. "It was a pretty small group, I knew everyone." She tapped her finger on the table and said, "Does that mean _you'd_ count as one of these 'sympathizers'?"

"At least I'm not dating a Death Eater," the girl said.

"Not. Guilty." Ginny enunciated the words as clearly as she could.

"Don't. Care." the girl said back just as plainly. "He was a Death Eater, he fought for that side, he's rotten to the core."

"They all are," the other girl said. She looked over at the Slytherin table. "You can't trust any of them. I'd say lock them all up, just to be safe."

"The new Minister's a good sort, too good. I'd have tossed them all in Azkaban. Your brother's too good, too, and Hermione Granger." The girl gathered up her things. "If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas," she said. "I don't want to get them. Stay away from me. Sympathizer."

The rest of the table looked embarrassed as their most vocal member walked off, but no one said anything, and Ginny ate the rest of her meal in furious silence.

. . . . . . . . . .

She sat the night, quill poised over parchment, and no words came. Or, perhaps, too many words came. She wanted to tell him everything, and pour her very self out to him. _This is what is happening,_ she wanted to say. _It makes me so angry. I don't know what to do. How can they be this mean when just last year I was one of the people they turned to for safety. I'm hurt and trying not to cry. I'm so angry I want to hex them all._ After not writing something long enough to have made significant progress on her Charms essay, she threw the quill so it hit the curtains she'd closed around her bed with a soft thwack and lay back. The draped cloth of the canopy bed hung above her and she stared at the red folds as her thoughts continued on the same circular path they'd been on since she first settled down with quill and parchment. Was she just doing the same thing she'd done at eleven? Just writing to some boy who seemed too perfect to be real? Who said he wanted to hear all her thoughts? Who said he cared about her, that she was special? The last one she'd written to who'd said all those things had turned out to be evil. Was this one? He admitted to being not a good person, but that covered such a range. Was he stick-your-toe-in-the-water bad or drown-the-world bad?

She heard the laughter of her roommates as they came in from something or other but made no move to join them.

She finally went to sleep with both letter and essay unwritten.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Draco sorted through the day's post and then looked through it all again.

"Problem?" Theo asked. He'd planted himself in a chair and was looking through a series of planned articles for the _Prophet._ Graham had more and, between them, they'd been snickering all morning as the sins of the various Order members we laid out in plain language. Theo had let out a low whistle at a murder-by-werewolf scheme that had gone nearly unpunished back when the self-named 'Mauraders' had cluttered up the Hogwart's disciplinary records with their antics. Graham had muttered it was unfair Theo got the fun things while he'd had to sort through the boring misdeeds of a petty civil servant.

"She didn't write," Draco said.

Graham let out a groan. "Are you really telling me that I'm over here proofreading an article about Arthur Weasley and you're looking for love letters from his daughter?"

"She writes every day," Draco said. He didn't meet Graham's eyes as he sorted through his pile of mail again. "I have plenty of other things I'm doing, Graham, but - "

"Do you think something's wrong?" Theo asked.

Draco let out a frustrated sound and let the pile of mail all drop. "She wouldn't tell me if there were," he said. "She doesn't exactly talk about her feelings. It's all Quidditch and comments about classes." He didn't mention that if he hadn't seen it, he wouldn't have known she was getting grief from her schoolmates about him. He could have guessed, of course, but she never, ever said anything about it. He wanted to ask, but if she refused to open up what did that mean?

He pushed aside his feelings, an unsettling mixture of hurt and worry, the same way he pushed aside the myriad unwanted notes and settled down to going over the planned series of articles on members of the Order of the Phoenix as part of their plan to discredit the war time secret society. Rita Skeeter had already done the heavy lifting with her book on Dumbledore; it was child's play to suggest the man had surrounded himself with monsters, would-be murderers, petty cheats, and traitors and that, however heroic they might have been in wartime, they were unsuited for governance.

"Merlin, but Mundungus Fletcher is the gift that keeps on giving," Graham said as he moved on to the next article. "Can you believe they trusted this guy?"

. . . . . . . . . .

The autumn fell away as leaves dropped and soon even the late summer flowers wore frost like jewels until the sun hit them. Ginny tucked her wand in her pocket when she left her room, always ready to grab it, and sometimes found herself in groups of green-clad students she didn't know. They'd appear around her as if they were going the same place she was then melt away. She never asked and they never explained and things stayed much the same: shoves she couldn't identify and cold shoulders from girls who couldn't quite commit to ostracizing the Quidditch captain and former member of the D.A. but who wanted to. Oh, how they wanted to.

At breakfast on a Hogsmeade day, one of those girls handed her the _Daily Prophet._ "Wasn't he a friend of your mum's?" she asked.

 _Kingsley Shacklebolt under Suspicion_ read the headline. Ginny's eyes widened as she read the article. "I don't believe it," she said when she was done. "He wasn't like that."

"Maybe you weren't his type," someone said. Ginny felt ill at the implication and she read though the first paragraph again. _Three girls have come forward accusing the Minister for Magic and former member of the Order of the Phoenix of improper conduct. Mr. Shacklebolt has temporarily stepped down from his duties pending further investigation. The young ladies, whose names are being withheld to protect their privacy, have all agreed to testify before the Wizengamot that Mr. Shacklebolt -_

She set the paper down as her stomach heaved. "I don't believe it," she said again.

"I do." One of her Housemates poured herself a glass of pumpkin juice and shrugged. "We all knew he was too good to be true." She glanced slyly at Ginny. "Like some other people we know."

A round of laughter greeted that.

"I hope they throw him in Azkaban and lose the key," someone said. "Bloody pedos."

Ginny walked down to Hogsmeade after that, copy of the paper she'd slipped into her bag burning at her side and Luna keeping her company. She said over and over again, "Do you think?"

Luna listened to her and just repeated, "Everyone knows the _Prophet_ lies. It's owned by a cabal."

Ginny had a pretty good idea who headed that cabal, and when she'd greeted him and dragged him, picnic basket in his hands, back to someplace private, she shoved him so hard he almost fell over. He did stumble into the old stone wall that kept them away from curious eyes. "Liar," she said.

"I've never lied to you," Draco Malfoy said. "Not once."

She yanked the folded paper out of her bag and thrust it into his pointed face. "Liar," she said again.

He glanced over the article but she could tell he already knew what it said. "I do lie to other people," he admitted. He didn't bother to sound apologetic or to deny he was behind the false allegations. "He was a good man, but he was in my way.

A photograph of Shacklebolt's temporary replacement squinted up at them from below the fold. The portly man reminded Ginny of a ground-dwelling rodent made nervous by his exposure to the light. The brief biography said he'd been the top of his class at Hogwarts, Sorted into Ravenclaw, and that he'd worked in the Ministry since leaving Hogwarts. He had an unblemished, if undistinguished, record of government service. "And this non-entity?" she demanded.

"He's persuadable," Draco said.

"Bribable, you mean."

"Nothing that crude," Draco said. He reached a hand out toward her but she slapped it away. "He's a man who listens to the loudest voice, that's all. If he's surrounded by people who tell him to do something, he'll not only do it, he'll come to believe it was his idea, and a good one."

She dodged another attempt to touch her and glared at him. "You've ruined him," she said, meaning Shacklebolt. "You've ruined him with insinuation and rumor."

Draco sighed and leaned against the wall. "I have," he said. "If it's any consolation, he won't be put on trial. I already know he plans to make this step down permanent. He's going to go off and raise chickens or something."

"How much did you pay the girls?" she asked.

Draco regarded her for a long moment. She could hear herself breathe, she was so angry, and at last he asked, "Do you really want to know? Because I'll tell you."

She could feel herself deflate. "Why?" she whispered.

"Do you want to see me in prison" he asked. "Or Luna's new friend? Or all those green-tie clad children at Hogwarts? Because there are people who want that."

Ginny knew. "That wouldn't," she began but Draco shook his head.

"Can you guarantee that?" he asked. "More, can you promise me that the Ministry, as it is, wouldn't overlook the rise of another Dark Lord because it was politically inconvenient to admit the truth?" She took a step back and he took one toward her. "Because if I'm the one controlling the strings, I can," he said. "I can absolutely guarantee if I'm the one in charge, there won't be any monsters sitting in any one's front parlours with man-eating snakes at their side."

"No monsters but you, you mean," she said.

If she'd expected him to look upset at that accusation she would have been disappointed. She didn't expect him to look almost sad, however. Almost sorry. "A price someone has to pay," he said. "Who do you trust more, me or the Ministry?" He took another step toward her. "They'll throw me in prison, Ginevra. They were already talking about it."

"Prove it," she said.

He nodded. "If I do," he said. "If I produce proof that was a discussion, a _serious_ discussion, about retrying people like me, do you agree trust me from here on out?"

"You destroyed Kingsley," she said. "Who else do you plan to take down to protect yourself? When do you make it about people you just dislike? How long until there's a Muggle-born registration commission? How long until you're breaking wands?"

Draco took another step and this time she didn't back away. "How long?" she asked again.

"Is that your price?" he asked her.

"I'm not available for purchase."

"Your condition, then? Prove I was at risk. Promise no wholesale pogroms?"

Ginny could feel herself nod. She didn't even want to but her head seemed to jerk up and down and, at last, she let him set a hand on her arm. "What do I get?" he asked.

She almost slapped him. "You get me not denouncing you," she said. "You get - "

"I want a wife," he said. "I want to restore the Malfoy family reputation and a Weasley bride will help do that." She flinched but didn't pull away. "And you'd be an equal partner in my - "

"Scheming."

"Fine, if you like. Wouldn't have been the word I would have chosen. A _partner_ , Ginevra. Not a girlfriend I'd leave behind and expect to wait for me." He tugged her closer to him. "I said I was courting you. You knew what that meant. You aren't stupid."

"This feels more like a negotiation than a proposal," she said. She didn't pull away, though, and he began to smile because he knew he'd won.

"I'd shower you in diamonds if I thought you'd take them," he said. "I'll take you out over the Christmas holiday and propose in a way that will check off every box in any romance list you could write." He took a deep breath and she braced herself for what was coming. "Do we have a deal?"

"Sometimes I don't like you very much," she said. She meant yes and she knew it and so did he.

His smile got sharper. "You don't plan to make me have Granger over for dinner, I hope," was, however, all he said.

Ginny began to smile. "Oh," she said. "I do. And I expect you to be so bloody gracious she might as well be the queen of France."

"France doesn't have a queen anymore."

"You know what I mean."

"Do I get a kiss?" Draco asked.

Ginny gave him a sour look. "No," she said. "You're lucky you don't get your balls hexed off."

Draco acknowledged that with a tip of his head. "Can I offer you a picnic then, as you requested after our last trip to this charming, if somewhat rustic, village? I have berries and cream, butterbeer, and some good cheese I wanted you to try." Even as he spoke he was spreading a blanket from the bracket out on the ground, her capitulation assumed.

Ginny let out an annoyed huff but sat down. "Do a warming charm," she ordered. "It's cold out here."

"You don't know how to do a warming charm?" he asked as he handed her a bottle of beer.

"I do," she said. "I just want you to do it."

So he did.


	6. Chapter 6

"Find me proof of the rumors," Draco said.

Marcus Flint rubbed at his eyes and tried to focus on the meeting. They'd been going in circles for hours and he'd confirmed that, yes, there was talk of how Draco – how all of them – had evaded punishment for wartime crimes via excuses people resented. Too young. Under duress. If you went into any pub you'd hear people muttering about that. It infuriated him because many of the people who were suddenly ready to tar and feather every Slytherin had spent the war hiding behind a façade of neutrality. "It's just talk," he said. "And, Merlin knows, we've suppressed any articles about it."

"I could plant one," Graham offered.

Draco shook his head. "She'd know," he said. "She knows we own the paper." At Marcus' alarmed look he raised a tired hand. "I didn't tell her," he said. "She just figured it out after the Kingsley reveal."

"Luna probably told her," Theo said. He didn't seem concerned his own leman knew things and he ignored the furious looks Graham and Marcus sent him. Luna knew all sorts of things he didn't tell her. Some of them were even accurate.

"It has to be real," Draco said. "Somewhere, deep in the bowels of that bloated, bloviating Ministry someone, somewhere, has to have written a memo suggesting what these morons whisper about. Find it."

"You know," Graham said, "most people get their girlfriends jewellery or flowers. Why do you two freaks have to go for craft projects and incriminating memos?"

"Because we're special," Theo said.

Marcus left, off to comb through yet more files of discarded memos and suggestions no one would ever follow, and Graham followed him, muttering about wastes of time and had Draco considered just talking to the girl like a sensible person. Once the pair had left Draco pulled a box out of the top drawer of his desk and handed it over to Theo.

"Do you think she'll like it?" he asked.

Theo popped open the lid and looked at the ruby engagement ring. "It's a bit red," he said. "Might clash with her hair."

"Very funny," Draco said. He buried his face in his hands and crumbled where he sat. "She hates me, Theo. She cornered me about Kingsley and… she hates me. Thinks I'm evil and rotten and manipulative and – "

"You are," Theo said. "You obviously think she'll agree to marry you, though. Either that or you got the shop to agree to take it back if she says no."

"She already said yes," Draco muttered. "I told her I needed a wife to restore sheen to the Malfoy name and that she'd known that's what I'd wanted since I started to court her."

Theo set the ring box down and looked at his friend, pity in his eyes. "For a smart man, you are such an idiot," he said. "Not, I can't stop thinking about you, please make me the happiest man, do me the honor… No, you had to say, 'I need a wife to perk up my political image.'"

"I do," Draco said. The hands over his face muffled the words and Theo sighed. "You know I do. So does she. And she made a bargain, told me if I didn't plan to persecute Muggle-borns she'd do it."

Theo squinted at him. "But that was never in the plans. We talked about it and decided it was too risky, too likely to incite another Order-like group."

Draco lifted his head and looked at Theo with raw misery. "I know, but there she was saying she'd marry me if I did this thing, or didn't, and it seemed like the most likely way I'd get what I wanted, so – "

"You always have the most convoluted, stupid plans of anyone I know," Theo said. "I swear, I spend more time trying to get you to simplify than… I never thought I'd say this, but Graham is right. You could try just talking to her."

"Too late for that," Draco said. He picked the ring box back up and closed it. "As long as you think she'll like the engagement ring, we're done here."

"If that's what you want," Theo said. "One thought, though: I'm pretty sure Ginny Weasley wouldn't have agreed to marry you just because you blackmailed her, or made some bargain. I don't know her well, but, if she really hated you, I think she'd be more likely to hex you to have boils for a year than agree to a bonding ceremony that'll leave her stuck with your sorry arse."

A wan smile came to Draco's face at that thought. "Maybe," he said.

"Probably. At any rate, I'm off to drink with Potter again," Theo said. "His childhood was a study in horrors and I've been getting the whole story. If that had been my lot, I would have burned the place to the ground as soon as I'd had a wand and claimed accidental magic."

Draco snorted. "Not Saint Potter, of course."

"No," Theo agreed. "Man's too good to be true." He stopped before he left. "I'm bringing him to your Boxing Day thing. Should I warn him his ex-girlfriend will be around with a ring that would put your eye out on her hand?"

Draco glared at him and Theo laughed as he shut the door and took off.

. . . . . . . . . .

Another article came out on Kingsley the last day of the term before the winter holiday and Ginny read it with a sour churning in her stomach. Just as Draco had predicted, the man had agreed to step down to avoid a trial. It made him look guilty.

"Still think he's just another war time saint?" a girl asked as she snagged the pumpkin juice pitched Ginny had been reaching for.

Ginny set the paper down. "It certainly looks bad," she said. "Maybe you're right."

The words curdled in her mouth. She'd only written to Draco once since she'd made her bargain, the bargain she'd just sealed by throwing a good man under the proverbial bus. He still wrote every day and she'd sit in her bed and stare at the handwriting and wish things were simpler. He was just as amusing, kept his anecdotes just as light, but before it had felt like a man trying to charm her because he liked her. Now she didn't know what to think. When he suggested they go out on Christmas Eve, she agreed. It would infuriate her mother but she didn't feel like she had the energy to argue for a different date. It was the only note she sent. _Christmas Eve would be fine. Pick me up at half past five. G._

"Maybe he really wasn't a good man," Ginny said as she handed the paper back across the table. "Maybe you're right."

The other Gryffindor looked smug. "Of course I am," she said.

Ginny sat alone on the train ride home, and when Ron met her at the station she just grabbed the things she'd brought and said, "Let's go," without any other discussion. When she announced she'd be going out for dinner with Draco Malfoy instead of staying in, the response was predictable.

"Is that still going on?" Ron asked. "I thought you'd have moved on by now."

"No," Ginny said. "Not moved on." She didn't care to explain. She didn't think she should have to.

"He's a coward," Ron said. He said it as if it were the worst insult he could fathom. Draco Malfoy lacked courage. He should have stood up to the monster in his house. He should have courted suicide. That would have been brave. That would have been right. Ginny shrugged.

Hermione looked worried. "He really isn't a good man, Gin," she said. "I know he suffered a lot at the end but he's still a prejudiced, narrow-minded prat, and – "

"Who I rather like," Ginny said. She looked at Hermione and the tiny diamond sparkling on her hand, and grimaced. So that had happened. Hermione looked so sure of herself, so convinced she was right. "I'd rather not have to defend him in my own home."

"Quite right," her mother said. "I'm sure he's a nice boy." Her tone implied she didn't think anything of the sort but that she didn't want arguing over Christmas. "Come help me peel the carrots."

Ginny obediently followed her mother into the kitchen and peeled in silence as Hermione and Ron argued in the other room about Kingsley. Hermione felt they should defend him. Ron thought they should let the matter drop and focus on finding the Dark wizards who'd fled in droves after the Battle of Hogwarts. Marked Death Eater and Snatchers alike had dissipated in the chaos after Voldemort's death and Ron didn't care who ran the Ministry as long as Auror funding didn't change. "Focus on your creature rights," he said. "If you go to battle for a man who's already quit, people may think you're covering up for him."

"So sad," Molly Weasley said as she peeled. "I never would have thought that about Kingsley. He always seemed like such a good man."

"Yeah," Ginny said. She picked up another carrot and began to peel it. "He did."

. . . . . . . . . .

The restaurant was predictably intimidating, with thick carpets and paintings on the walls Ginny suspected were the real things rather than clever copies. Candles provided the only light as a tall hostess in fitted robes and shoes Ginny couldn't afford led them to a secluded corner table. Ginny went to pull out her chair and Draco set a hand over hers. "Let me," he said.

She cringed as he helped her take her seat. Manners for a place like this weren't something she knew. There were enough forks for three people at her place and three goblets, each a different size. She looked at the smallest fork and considered how easy it would be to stab someone in the eye with it. Draco settled opposite her and took a breath and she really looked at him for the first time since he'd picked her up. He looked terrified. Even in this flickering light he seemed paler than usual and dark circles had appeared under his eyes as if he hadn't been sleeping well.

"I'm not good at this," he said. She blinked at him a few times. "I just don't know how to make you feel special and I see I've bungled the restaurant and now you're miserable."

"It's very nice," she said.

He sighed and reached a hand out to take hers. "I've missed you," he said. "I missed your letters."

"I didn't really have anything to say," she said. She felt his fingers as he laid them across the hands she had nervously crossed on the table in front of her. At least there wasn't already some kind of fancy plate you couldn't really eat off sitting there. She kept staring at the forks. You were supposed to start on the outside and work your way in, weren't you?

The hand that wasn't resting on hers passed her a packet of memos. She took them, shaking free of his touch, and opened first one and then another. One lamented the outcome of the Death Eater trials that had freed Draco and his parents and suggested throwing the verdict out and retrying them. Another suggested that anyone Sorted into Slytherin should be followed lest they display anti-social tendencies. Another went so far as to say the wands of Slytherins should be broken. ' _We all know everyone who went bad was in Slytherin,'_ the memo read. ' _Why should we be so foolish as to disregard this warning from an ancient magical artifact?'_

She set them down. "As I promised," he said. "Proof."

She nodded. She wasn't surprised. The girls in her House had gotten their ideas somewhere and she doubted it was from Witch Weekly; they were parroting the ideas of their parents. She doubted any of this malarkey would come to pass, but she couldn't blame Draco for being nervous.

"So we get married," she said. "Lucky me. Aren't you one of Britain's most eligible bachelors?"

He smirked a little at that. "I like to think so," he said. The smirk faded as he fumbled in his pocket and finally produced the expected ring box. "Ginevra," he said. "Ginny. I know I'm a prat, and not what you ever would have wanted. I've crimes I try not to think about stacked against my soul, and you could do so very much better." She could see his throat bobbing as he swallowed. "Still, you'd make me… If you would… I like to think I could make you happy. I would try. I would very much like to try."

She could feel her lips curve up in a smile. "What are you asking me, Draco Malfoy?"

He pressed his lips together into a nervous line and said, "Wouldyoumarryme?"

The words came out so quickly they blurred in over one another, a water colour painting of a marriage proposal, and she couldn't resist saying, "I didn't quite catch that. Could you say it again?"

This time he said the words in the wrong order. "Would you me marry?"

She giggled, and he scowled, but before she could give him an answer, a gloomy waiter demanded attention and Draco put in an order, apologizing to her for being so domineering but saying he had eaten here so many times he knew the menu, and the waiter took away one of the goblets and produced a carafe of water from nowhere to fill the second. When the man finally swept away, Draco pushed the tiny box toward her on the table and said, simply, "Please."

She opened the box and looked down. Even in the dimly lit restaurant the ring sparkled. She'd never seen anything quite so perfect. It wasn't at all like the dainty and appropriate ring her brother had put on Hermione's hand sometime that fall. It was vibrant and alive and loud and gorgeous.

It was probably vulgar and inappropriate.

She loved it the moment she saw it.

He must have seen a yes on her face, because he pried the ring out of the little, velvet covered holders in its box and licked his lips before he slid it onto the finger extended on the shaking hand she held out. "It's beautiful," she said. "Thank you."

"Not compared to you," he said.

He held her hands in his after that and ran his thumbs over her skin. She let herself pretend this doting swain was all he was. She let herself pretend this blushing girl was all she was. For a little while it was easy, and he picked her hand up and turned it over so he could press a kiss into her palm and it was so easy to just be a girl in… A girl in… A girl out to dinner and a much too fancy restaurant with a very nice boy.

He looked at the scar on her wrist and said, his voice teasing, "What's this? Some Quidditch injury? Is my future bride a woman who keeps the scrapes she gets on the pitch as mementos?"

She tried to snatch her hand back but he was too quick for her and he tightened his grip and didn't release her. Pretend time was over. "What is it?" he asked again. This time he didn't sound teasing at all. "What happened?"

She looked over his head at the painting on the wall. A woman stood, drawn only in dots, twirling a parasol in a sunlit park. The dots seemed a little behind her movement and had to hurry to catch up and resettle themselves on the sunshade. The woman smiled at her.

"What is it?" Draco still hadn't let go.

"Curse scars are hard to heal," Ginny said. She kept her eyes on the carefree woman who'd surely never been tortured. That park was a place of hedonistic delights, everything bright and happy. No madmen lurked behind those trees. No giggling lunatics plucked flowers. "Just a scar from Dark magic. That's all. We all have them."

"Tell me."

She wanted to tell him where he could shove his pushy demand. She'd never even told Harry. She'd never even told Ron. No one wanted to know what had happened that year. "Hogwarts has changed," Neville had told the 'Golden Trio.' No one had inquired too deeply as to how. "You were there," she said at last. "You know what the Carrows were like."

Draco's grip spasmed a bit. "I do," he said. "But… Even the son of a disgraced Death Eater, even a boy soldier… I was still somewhat protected from their malice. I didn't… What did they do to you."

"Oh," she kept her voice light and airy and her eyes on the painting so she wouldn't have to see him react. "They liked people to cower, you see. And I'm not really the cowering type. So one day they decided to teach the blood traitor a lesson and they used a rope they'd found somewhere to tie my hands to the cross piece of a chair, the bit at the bottom. It made it look like I was kneeling and they liked that. Made me look humble. They told me it was where I belonged. Then they crucioed me." It was getting harder to keep her voice steady. She'd thought she was going to die that afternoon. Then she'd wanted to die so the pain would end. Then they'd finished and the rope had disappeared and they were gone and she'd laid down on the cool, stone floor of a classroom where she'd taken notes and laughed with her friends and waited, in a puddle of her own urine, until someone had found her. "It was some kind of special rope, had bits of something sharp worked into it so it would cut you and those bits had curses on them. The scars will never heal. I'm really very lucky. If the sharp things had been in the wrong place, or cut any deeper, I probably would have bled to death."

She looked back down at his face. She'd never seen a person look so angry. His hands had gotten gentler on hers, and he lifted first one wrist then the other to his lips and pressed kisses all along the white lines. The soft, careful movements contrasted with rage on his face. She suspected she should be afraid of that expression and the man wearing it. It wasn't the look of the coward he claimed to be. Instead it made her feel warm. It made her feel safe for the first time since she'd learned to hate.

"I'm sorry that happened to you," he said. The waiter reappeared and produced a bottle of wine and Draco's face became a study in neutral pleasantries as he agreed it was indeed the bottle he'd asked for, as he tasted the tiny bit the waiter poured into the remaining empty goblet, pronounced it excellent, and as he waited for her to be served. When the waiter had filled her glass, then Draco's, Draco raised his goblet toward Ginny. "To the future Mrs. Malfoy," he said. "I'm glad you like the ring."

"To… to my future husband," she said, stumbling a little over the words. "I'm glad you like the bride."

"I do," he said. "I very much do."


	7. Chapter 7

"Ginny." Harry smiled at her with a pained expression. She supposed meeting your ex-girlfriend at Draco Malfoy's counted as socially awkward, but she just hoped he hadn't dragged Hermione along with him. She wasn't prepared to argue that Draco wasn't really a horrible, two-dimensional villain at a party, especially one in the man's own home.

"Harry," she said. "No one told me you'd be here."

He grimaced a little, dodged her comment, and waved at the ring on her hand. "I heard about… that," he said. "Congratulations."

Ginny's shoulders, which had been braced for condemnation, slowly relaxed. "Ron told you, I take it?" she asked. Her brother's reaction when she'd returned home with a giant ruby on her hand had been less than kind. He'd called Draco names, called her names, told her anyone who married for money earned it a dozen times over.

Hermione had tutted and fussed and glared at Ron's more colourful turns of phrase, but it had been clear she agreed with him. "He only likes you because you're pureblood," Hermione had said as if she were trying to explain something to a not-very-bright child. "Ginny, don't let his quest to keep that wretched family line of his 'untainted' drag you down."

"I won't repeat what he said," Harry said to her now as they stood in the Malfoy foyer, "but, yeah. As long as you're happy, though."

Draco came up behind her; he slipped a glass into her hand and an arm around her waist. "Potter," he said. He didn't extend a hand and Harry didn't look as though he would have taken one. Still, Ginny thought, he was here. That was something she never would have expected.

"Malfoy," Harry said. "Theo told me I should pop over."

"Glad you did," Draco said. Ginny managed to keep her mouth from falling open. For the pair of them this was practically a love fest. "There's drinks in the other room," Draco went on, "and food. You should be able to find something you like."

"Do I need to be worried about running into a band of Snatchers?" Harry asked. He looked around the big entry room with its marble floor and heavy chandelier as he alluded to the last time he'd been in Malfoy Manor. "Maybe your father, ready to turn me in to some Dark Lord or other?"

Draco tensed for a moment and Ginny could feel the way he almost reached for his wand before he said, "My parents have both moved off to a family home in France, I'm afraid. They don't find the British weather good for their health these days. And, alas, the Snatchers all sent their regrets. Seemed none of them could manage the dress code."

"There's a dress code?" Harry made a point of looking down at the Muggle trousers and old t-shirt he had on. Ginny had found something vaguely festive shoved in the back of her closet and, with a little judicious altering, it fit. Draco was, as usual, in bespoke black from head to toe. Harry, however, looked like a man out to run a quick errand before breakfast. He was clean enough, but that was it.

"You had to have bathed in the last month," Draco said. He made a show of sniffing the air. "You seem to pass."

There was another long pause until Harry snorted. "You're such an arsehole," he said, followed by, "I need a drink."

He strode off toward the room Draco had indicated and Ginny turned to look at her fiancé. "You two didn't kill each other," she said. "Not even a drawn wand. It's as if you're growing up."

He lifted her hand to his lips, turning it so he could kiss her palm. "For you, Ginevra, I'll even be nice to Granger. Occasionally. Compared to her, Potter is child's play."

"Draco. Ginevra."

Ginny looked up to see a lanky dark–haired boy had come into the foyer. She ran her eyes over trousers and a shirt as expensive as Draco's and sighed. Another one. "Do I know you?" she asked.

"Ginevra, meet Theo," Draco said.

She looked the newcomer over with more interest. Wealthy, yes, but also oddly graceless. He stood as if his arms and legs were too long for his body and he seemed to be braced against any quick movements. She expected him to lope away into the shadows at any sudden sound. His year under the Carrows had been bad; she could tell.

"Theo," she said. He held still under her inspection, but the longer she studied him the more relaxed he became until the hint of a smirk began to play at the edges of his mouth. "Luna's Theo."

"If you like," he said. "You might also just as easily say that she's Theo's Luna."

Ginny didn't care for this transformation from skittish, gangly boy to confident aristocrat. She, with all her experience with boys, could barely handle Draco. Draco, who became flustered and unsure of himself the moment they moved from politics into romance or relationships. There was no way that Luna could hold her own against this Theo if he coiled himself around her and began to squeeze.

Ginny took her finger and poked it against the man's breastbone. He quirked his eyebrows up but didn't step away from her prodding touch. "If you hurt her, I will kill you and it will look like an accident."

The smirk blossomed into a full smile. "What is it about Malfoy women?" he asked. "I heard a story once, Draco, about your mum as a girl. Apparently she was quite the demure thing. Very obedient. Very biddable."

"Narcissa _Malfoy_?" Ginny asked in disbelief. She'd heard a lot of words used to describe Draco's mother but 'biddable' had never been among them. Haughty, arrogant, prejudiced, and, of course, in the end defiant and brave. Never biddable. Never demure.

"Narcissa Black, yes," Theo said. "Not a lot of dissent tolerated in that household, I suspect. Best to behave. Safer. Right up until the day she married Lucius, when she transformed into the terrifying force we all know and love."

"Theo." There was a warning in Draco's tone.

"My apologies," the man said. "I am simply offering my compliments and congratulations to your beautiful bride." He took the finger still poking into his chest and made a show of bowing over her hand. "Though why she'd stoop to a sot such as yourself, I've no idea, you couldn't have found a more perfect choice."

"Potter's here," Draco said rather sourly. "Speaking of stooping."

"Did he show up?" Theo sounded pleased. "I wasn't sure he would."

"He's off raiding the food," Draco said. "He's your problem. Go babysit him."

Theo laughed at that and with another bow toward Ginny, took off for the main part of the party.

Draco turned to Ginny and set his hands on her shoulders. "You'd kill him?" he asked.

She cooked her head to the side. "You have a problem with my conduct?" she asked in return.

"No," he breathed out. "No problem at all." He lowered his mouth to hers and set his lips against first the left and then the right side of her mouth. Ginny reflected, as her own lips softened under his and she swayed into him, that he was a very fast study. By the time he'd backed her against one of the architecturally pointless columns at the side of the room and the kiss has become heated and frantic, she'd forgotten they were in what amounted to a very large entry hall because her mind was filled with thoughts of his hands sliding along her and his knee prodding her legs apart. Draco, if evidence was to be believed, didn't mind her threatening his friends. He didn't mind it at all.

As he was breathing, "You didn't think I fell for you because you were - what was that word? – _biddable_ did you," into her ear, Ginny was reminded they were not in a private spot.

"Merlin's tattered robes," said an unpleasantly familiar voice. "You have a house larger than the average city block and you still can't get a room?"

Draco pulled away from Ginny and eyed the newcomer with resignation. "Pansy," he said. "Welcome. Glad you could make it."

"Miss the chance to drink at your expense?" The dark-haired girl snorted and Ginny tried not to glare. Theo Nott she hadn't recognized; this… person… she knew. She knew exactly who Pansy Parkinson was. Something akin to jealousy twisted in to join her already less than warm feelings for the girl and her hand twitched toward her wand.

"You and Potter both," Draco said. He took Ginny's hand in his.

"Potter?" Pansy Parkinson looked briefly horrified and upset before she slammed an indifferent mask back over her features. "You invited the _Chosen One_? Who wants Potter around?"

"He and Theo are now best buddies," Draco said right as Ginny said, "I do."

"Oh, the indigent Gryffindor bride speaks," Pansy said. She smirked at Draco. "I heard about that. I think my mum almost had a fit when the gossip reached her. Not that I care – and maybe the old bat will stop harping on how I could land you if I just tried harder now - , but, really, was this the best you could do? A _Weasley_?"

"I decided to marry to suit myself," Draco said. "And you'll watch your mouth if you want to keep drinking that free beer."

His tone never wavered from that of a pleasant host but Ginny felt a shiver run up her spine. Pansy merely rolled her eyes but she also didn't share any more opinions about Ginny or the upcoming nuptials. Message sent and received. "Potter, though?" she said.

"Perhaps a bit uncomfortable for you?" Ginny asked. "Seeing as how you tried to turn him over to Voldemort."

Pansy kept her mask firmly in place. "Well," she said, holding her hands out as if weighing things in them. "A gangly schoolboy who'd never shown any aptitude for much beyond that odd Patronus Charm and Quidditch versus the Darkest wizard the world had ever known. Who would have picked Potter as the winner of that contest?"

"Me," Ginny said.

Pansy glanced at Draco. "But evidence that your judgement is shite is standing right here, Weasley, holding your grubby, little hand in his. No normal person would have expected Potter to rise from the dead _again_ to win. That's a fairy tale and that doesn't happen."

"It did, though," Ginny said.

"And thank Merlin," Pansy said. "I wasn't a fan of a certain someone's idea of good teachers." She shrugged. "If I get stuck in a conversation with the saint of our age, I'll be sure to apologize for assuming he was no match for pure evil." She let her eyes slide over Ginny's robes. "You should let me take you shopping sometime. That colour is wrong for you."

"Go get a drink," Draco ordered. Pansy's laugh was grating but she did as she was told and Draco sighed and rubbed at his forehead once she'd disappeared. "She's actually great," he said. "Loyal, a true friend. She's just… she doesn't have… she says whatever she thinks."

"Lovely," Ginny said. "I'm sure we'll be super close."

Draco brushed his nose against hers. "Brat," he said. "Do you think we could go back to what we were doing before Miss Pushy interrupted us?"

Ginny shoved him away, however, and said, "I think I want one of those drinks everyone else has been running off to get."

She headed toward the party and Draco trailed behind her muttering, "Pansy has that effect on people a lot."

It didn't take long for Ginny to decide this was a miserable party. Draco had set out more of that cheese he'd brought up to Hogwarts for their picnic and pate and things like honeycomb and grapes and melon slices and baklava. It wasn't that the food was bad, it was just not that festive.

She found herself in uncomfortable sympathy with that Pansy, who poked at the cheese and said, "Honestly, Draco, only you would put out washed French cheese at a party."

"What's wrong with the cheese?" Ginny heard Draco demand as she sorted through bottles of beer looking for something normal. Bitter cherry beer. Beer with chocolate. German lager with pineapple. At the bottom of the bin she finally found a plain, British ale and cracked it open with relief.

"Nothing," Pansy said. "If you're forty-five."

Graham Montague, who'd been hovering, snickered. Ginny avoided meeting his gaze, or Pansy's for fear she'd betray with some expression how thoroughly she agreed with them.

"I like the cheese," Ginny said. She made a show of smearing a large , runny chunk of it onto a plate along with some bread and a handful of grapes. "It's good."

Pansy made a face. "I'm off to find someone less effete," she said.

Ginny suspected that would be tricky. Slytherins she knew, Slytherins she knew by reputation, and people she didn't know at all but surmised were Slytherins, stood about in dignified clusters juggling plates and bottles with an ease she tried to emulate. She heard snippets of conversation about politics and bills and who was on what charity board. Two young women in little black dresses spoke with enthusiasm Ginny hoped was faked about the importance of increasing the outreach of their ballet school.

If anyone had told her the hated Slytherins, the despised House that spawned Death Eaters and such, were this boring she would have called them a liar. "Try the salad," a woman who'd made the daring choice to wear a little black dress said. "There's a really wonderful orange vinaigrette glaze on it."

"I'll do that," Ginny said. She looked down at her hands. One held a plate, the other a bottle. She took a swig from the bottle and wondered how she was supposed to get the bread and cheese into her mouth. The notion to just lower her face and nibble at it like a grazing horse occurred to her and she fought to control her smile at that image.

"What is it?" Draco asked.

"Nothing," she said. "Just a thought. I'll tell you later."

She needed to get this crowd - well, some of this crowd - drunk on cheap fire-whiskey and asking one another embarrassing personal questions. This was ridiculous. Pansy was right: you'd think everyone here was old. She needed to show them how Gryffindors partied. She had a feeling Pansy, at least, would be a fan. She suspected it wouldn't be hard to get the hard-faced girl to share more than anyone really wanted to hear. "I'm going to go find Harry," Ginny said. "See how he's holding up."

Draco kissed her cheek. "I'll be talking to Theo," he said.

Ginny took another swallow of the beer, smiled at him, and said, "I'll find you later, then."

"Make yourself at home," Draco said.

Ginny was halfway to a set of French doors flung open to allow access to a patio laid with stone pavers and giant urns of flowers before it really registered Draco meant that literally. It wasn't an idle pleasantry falling from the mouth of a gracious host. Once she married him, this enormous house would be hers. Her home. Hers. The French doors would be hers. The urns of flowers would be hers. The wings of bedrooms upstairs would be hers. She turned to look at him and, sardonic gleam in his eye, he blew her a kiss.

She smiled a tight, uncomfortable smile back at him, and fled to what she assumed would be the relative safety of the dark terrace. This took a lot more getting used to than she would have thought.

"Honestly, Potter, isn't your family rich? Why do you only seem to own one bloody t-shirt?"

Pansy Parkinson's piercing voice cut through the darkness, severing any notion Ginny would find a haven outdoors. She debated going back in, but a glance at the ballet women made her decide to just prop her plate along the stone wall encircling the terrace, let one of the giant urns with its tall flowers shield her, and eat her cheese and drink her beer in solitude.

Eavesdropping had no part in her decision to remain outside. Not at all. It wasn't eavesdropping when the people whose conversation you inadvertently overheard totally by mistake were so loud. She just needed time to regroup before facing that boring party again. That was all. She wasn't really interested in hearing Pansy and Harry's conversation.

She slouched a little to make sure the plant hid her and waited for Harry to tell the wretched woman off.

"I like this shirt," Harry said.

Pansy's snort was so loud Ginny was surprised the plants didn't vibrate. "No wonder you and that Weasley of Draco's dated. You both have abominable taste." Ginny tried not to grind her teeth at that. It was beyond infuriating to have this robe she'd spent the afternoon altering dismissed out of hand like that.

Harry took an audible swallow of his beer - Ginny hoped he'd tracked down one of the less peculiar options - before he said, "Yeah, well, I'm talking to you so you might have something there about my taste."

"Who else would you talk to?" Pansy asked. "One of Draco's political buddies, all eager to suck up to the newest Malfoy in case he becomes the kind of puppet master his father was before - "

She stopped talking rather abruptly. There was a pause long enough Ginny wondered if one of them tad managed to silently fade away but then Pansy said, "before the war."

"Right," Harry said. "The war."

"I'm sorry about that," Pansy offered.

Harry didn't seem to be that bothered by her historical attempt to hand him over to a crazed would-be dictator. "Eh," he said. "It was a reasonable choice, all things considered."

"Still pretty - "

"Just drop it," Harry said. "It all worked out. You were scared."

"You weren't," she said.

"Fucking terrified," Harry said. "But I'd pretty much given up and just expected to die." He tipped the bottle back and took another swallow. "I don't exactly blame you."

"Everyone else does."

"People are shites," Harry said. "What's wrong with this shirt, anyway?"

Pansy scoffed. "Other than it should have been put in a rag bin two years ago?"

"Yeah."

"It's casual and sloppy and this is a party," Pansy said. "I mean, Merlin knows you can pull it off. That year hiking around was pretty good to you, but it's still just a t-shirt." Ginny could hear a clink as Pansy set her own bottle down. "These arms would also look good in a more proper dress shirt."

"I don't own a more dress shirt proper."

Ginny's fingers tightened on the hunk of bread she'd been lifting to her mouth. If Harry were that flustered, Pansy had stopped insulting him and... she leaned very carefully around the planter and then retreated as quickly as she could. Harry stood frozen as Pansy ran a hand over his bicep.

"You aren't shy," he managed to say.

Ginny began to feel the smallest hint of mean amusement. Harry always ended up spitting water out over his clothes or offending any woman who wasn't able to announce what she wanted. He was pretty much hopeless with subtlety. Pansy, clearly, wouldn't recognize subtle if it moved in and put its feet up on her table. This might work out. And, if not, at least he'd have an interesting night.

As she was slipping back into the main party, she couldn't miss the way Pansy had settled herself so she was seated on the stone wall that went around the patio. Her feet were crossed behind Harry's waist, and she was asking him, her eyes suspiciously wide, what it had been like to be on the run for so long. Had it been cold, she asked breathlessly.

Harry was stammering that it had actually been quite cold, yes, when Ginny moved out of earshot.


	8. Chapter 8

"Who do we have in Azkaban?" Draco asked.

Marcus Flint pulled out a pile of folders, searched until he found the right one, and said, "Whom we trust?"

"Someone who could be released upon the discovery of new evidence," Draco said. "Someone who will be grateful and happy to melt back into obscurity when he's found to have been merely a sycophant follower, let off with time served."

"Rowle?" Flint asked. "He killed that Gibbon, so he could reasonably plead that he was being coerced and tried to do the right thing when opportunity presented itself."

"He killed Gibbon by accident," Draco said with a snort.

Graham laughed. Blond, thick Rowle hadn't exactly been a respected member of the regime or one of it's most competent soldiers. He'd been a true believer, however. "He was a worthless fuck."

"If you say so, Montague," Flint said. "Never knew him that well myself."

"Fuck you," Montague said.

Before the pair could go at one another with any more venom, Draco said, "Could we get him out?"

"We could get anyone out," Theo said from where he sat. "The question is, why we'd want to."

Draco smiled. "I'd like him to do me a little favor," he said. "And people who do us favors should be rewarded."

. . . . . . . . . .

Ginny picked up the discarded _Prophet. Murder in Azkaban_ , read the headline. The article went on to complain at some length about the obvious flaws in the prison if one inmate could get out and kill two others then slip back into his cell without anyone noticing. An investigation needed to be launched, guards needed to be fired, heads needed to roll.

Not Alecto Carrow's head, even though now that it was no longer attached to the woman's body that was, Ginny supposed, a possibility. Someone in Azkaban didn't mind stooping to Muggle methods and had had access to wire and brute force. Amycus must have put up a better fight as his throat was merely crushed and sliced. The wire had been left in the wound. Speculation suggested it had taken him a while to die after his assailant had slipped away, back into whatever cell held him.

Ginny hoped that speculation was true.

She looked down at the ring on her hand. It sparkled as it caught the light in the Dining Hall. She'd been eyed with a combination of disdain and envy when her Housemates had seen the rock and the partial shunning had started up again. She'd been timing her arrival at meals to miss the worst of them but maybe she'd had enough of that. Maybe she was going to be one of the power brokers that helped move chips around the political table via connections and friends and not being afraid and maybe people should be trying to cultivate her instead of antagonize her. She remembered Tom Riddle's mean little comments about fear and power and, yes, he'd been a madman and the happiest day of her life had been had been when Harry killed that bastard, but he hadn't been stupid, not at the beginning anyway.

She held her hand out, turning it first one way then the other to admire the way the red stone caught the candlelight. "You taught me things, you miserable nutter," she murmured. "And I stayed sane despite having you in my head that whole year. Maybe I'm ready to put some of your lessons to work to make sure no one like you ever slithers past the guards again."

She glanced over at the Slytherin table. One of the few students there caught her eye and Ginny nodded. The girl nodded back and they smiled at one another.

That night, Ginny dashed off two notes.

 _Shopping would be great,_ she said in one. _Maybe over the Easter holiday?_

 _I enjoyed my time with you,_ she wrote in the second _. I keep staring at this ring. You know how to give a girl a present, that's for sure. The Easter holiday can't come quickly enough. I already miss you. Yours, G._

 _. . . . . . . . . ._

Draco slid his knife along the wax seal on the note with careful hands. After the long drought of mail from Hogwarts in the fall, he was almost afraid to read what Ginny had sent him. He told himself it couldn't be too bad. She'd accepted the ring. She'd seemed to have a pleasant enough time at the party.

Maybe she didn't know about the Carrows, or wouldn't put it together.

Harry Potter had certainly had a pleasant time at the party. Pansy had followed her advice to him and found a room. Draco found himself hoping she didn't just toss the poor sot aside. If Theo had to listen to Harry Potter cry into his beer over Pansy he would end up having to listen to Theo recount the whole, miserable affair.

Draco had a lurking suspicion Theo liked Potter, which boggled the mind, but he was already planning some kind of casual public outing where he and Ginny could be seen with the boy wonder over Easter. Maybe a casual pint while waiting for Ginny and Pansy to buy whatever it was girls bought when they went off in pairs into shops. It all worked out better if Pansy kept the boy dangling from her manicured nails.

He open the letter and read.

She'd put it together.

He ran a finger over the looped 'Yours' and felt a lump in his aristocratic throat. She'd never signed any of her notes that way before. Not one.

Apparently, she didn't mind, though the wording was sufficiently encoded he couldn't be completely sure she didn't mean the ring.

"Yours too, Ginevra," he murmured. "Until I die and they bury my bones and even then."

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Pansy kicked her legs out in front of her and frowned at the strap of her heel. It was the sixteenth pair she'd tried on and Ginny's patience had given out somewhere around shoe number five.

Not pair number five. Shoe number five.

"Just get them," Ginny said. The winter had slipped away and the Easter holidays had come upon her with their usual cheap eggs filled with equally cheap chocolates, courtesy of her mum, and a somewhat less usual bouquet of hothouse flowers that she'd had to split into three vases at the Burrow. She'd studied for N.E.W.T.s, turned her most cutting sarcasm on any Housemate who dared try to cut her, and had made the Gryffindor Quidditch team do workouts that would have made Oliver Wood cry.

"If you can't keep up with me," she'd said to the first, panting complainer, "I'm sure younger, more flexible students would be happy to take your spot."

Her endurance, however impressive, was nothing compared to Pansy's in her quest for the impossible shoe.

Pansy took the shoes off and, slipping her feet back into much less spectacular flats, said, "Well, that's probably long enough."

"Long enough for what?" Ginny demanded.

Pansy gave her a pity-filled look. "Draco's busy showing Harry off like some kind of trophy." She patted Ginny on the farm. "Don't worry," she said. "You'll get it. It's just like the spending money rules."

Pansy had bullied Ginny into three dress shops, then put so many robes on hold Ginny has felt faint, especially when she saw the price tags. Pansy had, with delighted condescension, explained she couldn't spend a Knut of Draco's money until after the wedding, nor could he give her anything other than the ring or things that didn't keep, like flowers or meals. "Take a single Knut, you'll be branded as a whore," Pansy had explained. Thus, the hold. The day _after_ the wedding, the shops would gleefully charge Draco's vaults and send the items over to the Manor. Ginny's sour observation that that was a very transparent workaround just got her another one of Pansy's little faux-sorry hand pats. Yes, the rules were quaint little things, but such was life, and how did she feel about joining the ballet school board?

Ginny had curled her hands into frustrated fists at that until she'd seen the gleam of malice in Pansy's eyes. Then she'd said, as sweetly as she could, "I wouldn't have thought you'd taken ballet. You don't seem graceful enough for it."

Pansy's eyes had widened, then she'd laughed. "You're all right, Weasley," she'd said. "Once you aren't dressing like a peasant in some tedious opera, I might not be embarrassed to be seen with you."

When they returned to the pub where Draco had a table only partially showcasing how he was out with his new friend, Harry just looked up at Pansy. "Didn't buy a damn thing, did you?" he asked.

"I'll wait to spend your fortune," she said. She looked at the empty bowl in the middle of the small, sticky table. "Did you losers eat all the pretzels?"

 _. . . . . . . . . . ._

"So, how does this work?" Marcus Flint had poured them each fairly tall glasses of firewhiskey and they sprawled across the floor of one of Draco's libraries, shoes kicked off and those who had couples to pair off into paired.

"This," Ginny said, "is how Gryffindors party."

"So we brag about things we haven't done and then set things on fire?" Graham asked.

"Ha ha." She looked at the assembled group. Harry looked smugly pleased, his arm wrapped around Pansy Parkinson. The Slytherins all looked worried. Luna was playing with her toes. "You lot are a bunch of stuck up, elitist, snobs - "

"You're repeating yourself," Marcus said.

" - and your idea of a party needs work."

"Things like that Christmas gathering are important," Draco said. "That's how you make contacts, reassure people you aren't a bloodthirsty madman. That's where laws get made, not in the Wizengamot."

"Spare us all the civics lecture," Pansy said. "Let your peasant wife-to-be talk."

"And," Ginny went on, "I thought we could all stand to get to know each other a little better since it seems we're all working together toward something."

"World peace," Draco said blandly.

Graham, who'd been taking a neat sip of his drink, choked and sputtered. "Warn a man, would you?" he asked.

"So I thought we should play a round or two of 'I never'." Ginny smiled at the Slytherins who went from looking wary to looking downright terrified. "Unless you're afraid," she added as Marcus wasn't surreptitious enough in his search for an exit.

He looked right at her. "I never told the Dark Lord all my secrets," he said.

Ginny picked up her glass and took a drink. "I think you understand how this one goes, then," she said. "I never had to repeat by N.E.W.T.s."

Marcus glared at her as he took his own drink by Pansy laughed. "You deserved that," she said. "Try not to be fooled by how tiny she is, or that she's got those big, brown eyes that look like an innocent filly. She can keep up with Draco. Remember that."

"Your turn," Marcus said to her.

Pansy shrugged. "I've never kissed Daphne Greengrass."

Marcus narrowed his eyes as he took another drink. Theo sighed and followed, as did Graham. Ginny looked at Draco. "I only have eyes for you," he said. "You know that." He brushed his lips over her hair and then said, "I've never kissed Draco Malfoy."

Ginny grinned and took a drink and Pansy lifted her own glass to her lips and waited for the round of nervous laughter before she set it down again. "I like Seekers," she said, "but Draco's too clingy." That seemed to ease the tension away and after that they threw out one suggestion after another. Graham had never flown at night. Luna had never caught a bug in her teeth (neither had anyone else). Theo had never gotten so drunk he'd passed out. Harry had never had sex in a public place. ("We can change that," Pansy said.)

The suggestions grew more and more outrageous until Marcus said, "I've never shoved a vegetable up my arse to see what it would feel like."

Everyone looked at him except Luna, who'd not had a sip so far. She picked up her glass and took a swallow.

Graham sighed. "Honey," he said to her. "You're supposed to drink when it's something you've done, not something you haven't done."

She blinked her large, grey eyes and said in a somewhat vacant tone, "Am I supposed to take a swallow for each time I've done something?" She picked the glass up again and prepared to drink more as everyone looked at her in

"No," Graham said in a hurry, "just once is fine." He looked at Theo who had a bland smile on his face. "Fuck," Graham breathed out in sudden awe.

"Indeed," Theo said.

. . . . . . . . . .

After the lot of them had left and Draco had sent the last person home through the Floo, he turned to Ginny and said, "So."

She pressed her lips together, wet them with her tongue, and then smiled. "So," she said.

"That Luna is… interesting," Draco said. He wasn't wholly sure what Theo saw in her, but he was pretty sure after tonight that if she decided she wanted to move on, Graham would be at her door with flowers clutched in his sweaty hands. Either of them were welcome to her. That mask of dottiness would exhaust him, and the even idea of trying to constantly suss out whether the woman was amusing herself by pretending to be peculiar, or really had no idea what was going on, gave him a headache.

Though, of course, that could be the whiskey.

Or nerves.

"She is," Ginny said. "Interesting."

"Theo seems to like her."

Ginny shrugged and Draco bit the inside of his mouth. Did Ginny want to go home, back to the Burrow and the parents struggling to pretend they were thrilled she'd found a husband at seventeen, and a Malfoy at that? They'd invited him over for an Easter brunch and he'd had to say yes. That was sure to be horrible, even more awkward that watching Marcus come up with more and more dubious things a person could do with their bodies to see whether Luna would drink.

Draco had been relieved Ginny had just snuggled back into his arms and laughed at most of the suggestions, some of which he had to admit, if only to himself, he was going to have to look up later. He didn't mind she'd dated. He'd been sincere when he said a gentleman didn't inquire too closely into a lady's past. But he'd rather, if she were going to try some of the things Marcus had listed off, that she try them with him first. Him _only_.

Also, Marcus clearly spent much too much time reading porn and needed more responsibility to keep him busy. He'd think about that tomorrow.

"So," he asked, "do you want to leave?"

"Do you want me to?" She crossed her arms, then uncrossed them, then shoved her hands into pockets. "I mean, I can. I don't want to impose, I - "

"I'd love you to stay." He stepped toward her and she stepped toward him and he grabbed her into a hug and then laughed nervously. "Why is this so hard?" he asked her. "We're engaged. This should be easy."

"We don't see each other a lot," she said. "And your motives in courting me weren't exactly true love."

He brushed some of that fiery hair way from her face. "I hope you aren't ruling it out," he said. He hesitated before he bent down to press his lips against hers. When she didn't pull away, he held her more tightly and let the hunger he'd kept in fierce, painful check since she'd said yes to the engagement off its leash. She responded by letting her body curve into his. Her hands slid up his back and she opened her mouth under him. He kissed her, tasting the whiskey they'd drunk and the sweets she'd eaten. He kissed her and tasted her determination and pride and that streak of wildness that he saw in her whenever she flew. He kissed her and hoped against hope what he tasted might be the start of love. Might be the start of trust.

When they broke apart, both gasping, she'd backed him against a wall and he was bracing himself under a mercifully silent portrait while his body begged him to sweep her up the stairs into his room and let kissing be just the start of the night.

Or the chaise. It was comfortable. He wouldn't object to devouring her more fully right there on the chaise.

"I'm not," she said.

Draco struggled to get his brain to focus on something other than lust. "You're not what?" he asked

"Not ruling it out," Ginny said softly. He heard the portrait, some tedious great-aunt, he thought, shift and rustle above him, but she didn't say anything and neither did he.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Draco handed Molly Weasley a bottle of champagne. He'd had hopes if he supplied the alcohol she'd serve it right up, preferably with a little fresh squeezed juice, and he'd be able to blunt the edges of the horror that was sure to be brunch with Ginny's family. His hopes were dashed. She thanked him, handed the bottle without even looking at the label off to the twin who'd made it, and told him he looked handsome.

She sounded like she was lying. Draco, raised by people who considered lying an art form and a game, didn't think she was very good at it. "Thank you," he said. He considered kissing her hand but decided that would be overkill. She'd know that wasn't sincere. "I like that jumper," he said as she led him to what he supposed she considered a parlour. "I think my mum has one like it."

"Really?" Molly frowned at him.

"She always said you couldn't go wrong with good, British knits," Draco said as he sat on something upholstered. There was a stain. He hoped it wasn't because some animal had peed on it.

"Potter," Draco said.

"Malfoy," Harry returned. "You sober up nicely."

Draco stretched out his legs and leaned back. "Sobriety potions are one of the best things about the wizarding world. Didn't Pansy offer you one?"

Harry let the smallest of smiles twitch at his mouth. "She distracted me from my pain in other ways," he said.

"Fascinating," Draco said.

The twin - he was fairly sure it was George but made a mental note to check - flung himself down next to him on the couch. Draco admired the man's attempt to make him uncomfortable by intruding into his personal space but didn't give him the pleasure of so much as the tiniest withdrawal. "So, you fell for our little sister," George said. There was an odd pause as if he were waiting for someone else to say something before he added, "Suppose that pureblood thing helped."

"She's brilliant and more than beautiful," Draco said. He considered shifting a hair's breadth closer and decided that would read as too aggressive. "I didn't need to see her blood to know that about her."

"Ginger hair and hand-me-down robes," Ron said from the doorway. Ron, Draco noted, had decided that 'too aggressive' was just fine. "You knew she was a Weasley."

"Mmm," Draco said. "Where is my bride-to-be, by the way?"

"Fussing with her hair," Ron said. He sat on the edge of a chair that someone had covered in a what looked like an afghan crocheted by someone who thought if one bright color was good, seven were better. "For some reason since you starting sniffing around her, she's all about bobby pins and curlers and undoes."

Draco's mind filled with the image of himself pulling one pin after another out of Ginny's hair and watching it tumble down to spread out across his pillow. He shrugged. "She's a beautiful woman, and as Mrs. Malfoy she's going to have significant charitable obligations. Women generally try to look nice for those, or so I've observed."

"Gin's not some puppet to do your hoity-toity charity work," Ron said.

"Except I'm looking forward to it," Ginny said. She crossed the room, kicked at George to get him to move, and settled on the couch next to Draco.

He placed a chaste kiss on her cheek. "You look nice," he said. She did, too. She'd done some of her alternation magic with a robe he was sure had been bought for a girl shorter and smaller than she was and the result was charming.

"In her hand-me-down robes," Ron said.

"Are they?" Draco pulled back to look at Ginny. "I guess I don't pay that much attention to women's fashion because all I see is the woman, but if you say so, Ronald. I'll defer to your expertise."

Ginny, he was pleased to note, seemed to be muffling a snicker.

"You can't really want to do a bunch of posh charity work," Ron said.

"But I do," Ginny said. She laced her fingers through Draco's. "The post-war world has a lot of needs, Ron. If I'm fortunate enough to have resources, shouldn't I think about using them to make things better?"

"Fortunate enough to be bloody rich, you mean," Ron said. He seemed to slouch in his chair even though his posture managed to remain stiff. It was an impressive combination of defeat and offense all tied up in one bit of body language. "Just never saw you as the rich girl type."

"I'm not a type," Ginny said. She was bristling and things might have gotten bad if Molly hadn't come in,all unnecessary movement and energy, and announced that they needed to come eat before the eggs were cold. His future mother-in-law, Draco though, as he watched the dumpy woman order and fuss and hover until all her brood, along with him and Harry, were seated. Her husband seemed immune to her and was already piling sausages and fried tomatoes onto his plate.

A continental breakfast of fruit and delicate pastries this wasn't.

"This is wonderful," he said to Molly after he took a bite of her eggs.

She beamed at him. "So let's talk about the wedding," she said. "I'd always hoped, of course, that Harry might be a son - "

"Mother," the third Weasley son at the table hissed in obvious mortification, but she continued on, either oblivious or uncaring.

" - but I just want Ginny to be happy."

"As do I." Draco smiled at Ginny, who rolled her eyes. A quick glance over at Harry showed a man determined to ignore what Molly Weasley had just said, and to prevent himself from being expected to make any kind of response by dint of filling his mouth with food.

"I was thinking a simple affair on the back lawn," Molly went on, "something with a buffet that I could make and - "

"She's marrying _Malfoy_ , mum," Ron said. "He's rich. Just let him get a hall somewhere, and a caterer."

Molly looked a little shocked. "That wouldn't be right," she said. "That's not how things are done."

"Want to be able to throw my only girl a wedding," Arthur said, his fork halfway to his mouth. "What's a man work for if not for that?"

"He's right," the third Weasley - Draco's brain supplied the name 'Percy' and the information that he was frequently on the outs with his family - said. "Having her husband's family pay for the wedding wouldn't be right at all. Not the done thing."

"Not the done thing," George mimicked. "Look who's suddenly second nephew to the queen."

Draco found himself grateful to be an only child. Before he could do much more than smile and sip from the pumpkin juice that hadn't seen a pumpkin in many years, if ever, the door flew open and a mass of brown hair came barreling though. "I'm sorry I'm late," cried a voice from within the bushy mass. "I was correcting reports for that man who replaced Kingsley - I swear, he doesn't have a thought it his head, I don't know how he was Sorted to Ravenclaw - and I lost track of time."

Her bag was dropped, a cloak tossed aside, and Hermione Granger sat down in an empty chair and began moving eggs to her plate. She looked across the table at Draco and openly grimaced but all she said was, "Malfoy. Of course. How nice to see you."

"You're looking well," he lied.

She reached up to her push some of her hair out of her face. "You as well." He sat back and listened to her talk at length about work, her co-workers, their opinions on the Ministerial puppet he and his had installed. At last she said, "Did you hear about Rowle?"

"No?" Ron said.

Draco caught a flicker of amusement on Harry's mouth. "I had to go answer some questions about him," he said. "Whether I thought he was under duress, things like that." He shrugged. "Apparently he killed one of his own the day Malfoy here let the lot of them into Hogwarts, and is claiming he was trying to work from the inside to help bring Voldemort down."

"Do you think he was?" Percy asked.

"I said it was as likely as anything else," Harry said.

"Well," Hermione said. "They've let him off with time served, though he'll be under probation forever. He's off to live in some cottage an aunt left him in Wales and says he plans to write poetry."

"Poetry?" Draco cocked an eyebrow upward. The man had been supposed to claim he was going to breed krups. Poetry was fine, but, if he planned to go off script, he'd need watching. He'd get Marcus to stop by.

"Seemed odd to me too," Hermione said.

"There once was a man named Rowle," George began but he stopped when Molly glared at him.

"So a backyard wedding," Molly said, getting back to the topic at hand.

"That sounds perfect to me," Draco said. "Just so it's what Ginny wants."

"As long as you're the groom," she said, "that's all I care about."

Draco risked a look at Ron. He looked as if something had caught in his throat. Draco considered that maybe he should eat with the Weasley clan more often. Molly really could cook, and watching Ginny's assorted brothers try not to choke on how happy she was with him was never going to get old.

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco poured out the ale and handed the pint over to Theo. "Nice work with Potter," he said. "How'd you get him to say what we wanted to the Ministry? We didn't need it, of course, but he does give a nice gloss of legitimacy to the whole thing."

Theo laughed. "Told him it would piss off the powers that be, and if that blond bastard ever set a foot out of line he'd have an unfortunate, fatal accident in his garden."

"Rakes can be very dangerous," Draco said.

"They can," Theo agreed. "People are injured every year by rakes carelessly left out."

"Rowle knows?"

"Rowle is so fucking grateful to be out of Azkaban, he'd suck your dick if you asked."

Even the walls couldn't miss Draco's lack of enthusiasm for that idea. Theo laughed and took a long swig of his ale. "Prude," he said.

"Thorfinn Rowle," Draco countered.

"A fair point, my friend. A fair point."


	9. Chapter 9

Ginny rubbed at her eyes and set her quill down. The last N.E.W.T exam was written, she was done, she was no longer a student. All that was left was for her to pack up her room, go to the end of year ceremony, and go home.

Or to Malfoy Manor, which, as surreal as it seemed, would be her home. No more funny little cottage with additions that made little sense and a ghoul banging about in the attic. No more using one chicken to make three meals. She'd be mistress of a house with _wings._

The idea made her rub her eyes one more time before she turned in her exam, scooped up her bag, and went out into the corridor, planning to go up to her room and sleep now that she didn't have any more exams waiting in her future, whispering to her that she should look over her notes one more time. Draco was waiting for her. He was leaning up against the wall outside the examination room, his arms crossed and his good shoes gleaming on the dull stone floor.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

He quirked one of his pale eyebrows up. "What sort of a fiancé would I be if I didn't help you celebrate your final exam? Dinner, maybe? I have reservations at a new little Spanish bistro Pansy recommended."

"I can't leave," she said. "Not yet."

Draco however smirked at her. The expression gave away that he had, yet again, managed to use his money and his influence and the charm that he really could turn on when he wanted something to get his way.

"We have special permission," he said. "Headmistress McGonagall agreed that engaged woman over the age of majority was an adult and, now that your schoolwork is done, there would be no concerns about you going out to have a lovely dinner with, well, me."

"Just how much money did you give her for next year's rebuilding projects?" Ginny asked. She tried to summon a sour tone to her voice but, in truth, she was happy to see him. She let him pull her into an embrace and rested her head against him and inhaled.

"Tired?" he asked.

"It's been a long week," she said, and stepped back.

"I'm sure it has," Draco said. He took the book bag out of her hand and slid it over his own shoulder. The ratty, worn-out, feminine bag clashed amusingly with his expensive, neatly pressed white shirt. "I know one isn't supposed to say this, but you look exhausted," he said. "I'm not sure you're up for a fancy dinner."

Ginny was tempted to agree, but the idea of escaping her shared room with the girls who would surely be comparing notes about what had been on exams and, more tediously, what boys they planned to sit with at one event or another, was an even stronger lure than sleep so she let him lead her out of the castle and down to the gate so they could apparate back to London.

He kept her amused as they walked, their feet in neat step with one another. Thorfinn Rowle had indeed taken up writing poetry, and he had been sending copies of his work to the man he considered his savior. Azkaban had not agreed with him and his gratitude to be out was overwhelming. Unfortunately, his stay in prison had not given him any literary talent. Draco had memorized several of Rowle's poems and recited them for Ginny; it was all she could do to keep from gasping and choking on her laughter.

"Do you think we could arrange to get them published?" she said. "It seems unfair to keep such treasures just for ourselves."

"You are a mean woman," Draco said. "Maybe a special column in the _Prophet_?"

That made her laugh even harder.

By the time they reached the edge of the apparition wards, however, Draco had apparently come to some kind of conclusion. "I did have these rather magnificent dinner plans," he said, "but I think you might be too tired."

Ginny tried to muster the energy to lie and say that a multi-course dinner at a fabulous restaurant filled with hovering waiters and pressed tablecloths and one of those people whose only job seemed to be to scrape the crumbs away sounded simply fabulous, but the truth was the very idea exhausted her.

Draco glanced at her face, nodded and said, "I think maybe soup at the house, and then a nap in the peace and quiet of your own home."

Ginny began to protest that there was no way that McGonagall would allow her to spend the night away from school. Dinner was surely one thing, but an overnight seemed outrageous. Draco set that fear at ease. "She said to have you back by tomorrow morning," he said. "I admit that I might have had plans upon your fair person, as ungentlemanly is it might be to try to rush the wedding night, but I really don't think you're up for it."

Ginny acknowledged it had been a long week. Indeed, compared to this week of last minute studying and exam pressures, a life of charitable work and hosting dinners for people who were trying to stab one another in the back all while blaming someone else seemed easy.

When they appeared on the front steps of the Manor, Draco pushed the door open and led her into the foyer. A quick word to a house elf and the creature scurried off, Ginny assumed to get some kind of light dinner. She watched it walk away, its ears waggling, and she thought, again, this is my life. There are servants. There are tiny magical creatures who want nothing more than to make me happy. It seemed unreal.

It still didn't seem real when the creature reappeared in the small dining room Draco settled her in, a bowl of broth that had some noodles and sliced beef floating in it in its hands.

She dipped her spoon gratefully into the simple meal. Draco kept up a running patter of more things designed to amuse her as he ate his own bowl, dropping fresh basil leaves into the soup and asking if she'd like any of the bean sprouts. She let him drop some in and admitted they were good. The soup was good. The meal was good. She eyed the man keeping her entertained as though pretty conversation with her was all he'd ever desired and admitted the company was also good.

No, she thought. Not good. The company was the best.

But, as good as the company was, by the time she'd finished the last of her soup, her eyes threatened to close at the table.

"To bed," Draco declared.

She pushed herself to her feet and laughed when he scooped her up and began to carry her up a sweeping staircase.

"I hope you don't plan to be this pushy every day," she said, her cheek resting against his shoulder. "If you do, I'll hex you."

Draco kicked open the door to some room with one foot. "I wouldn't dream of it," he said. She knew he settled her onto a bed and then she was asleep, her last thought that she had to get her mother the recipe for that soup.

. . . . . . . . . .

When Ginny woke up, moonlight was in her eyes and she blinked a few times and took a moment to orient herself. A hand under her pillow found her wand, a quick tempus charm let her know it was a little after two in the morning, and a quick illumination charm gave a dull glow to the room that was far more useful than the focused beam from the moon.

She rolled out of the bed and began prowling around what proved to be a very masculine room. She assumed it was Draco's and instead of the schoolboy green and silver she would have expected, the walls seemed to be painted a dark blue and the walls had a painting of a red fox looking rather pleased with itself instead of Quidditch posters or magazine pinups.

Well, she supposed Draco would have had the tact to remove any half-naked girls from the walls before he planned to - how had he put it? - try out the designs he had upon her person. She smiled in the dim room at the quaint way of saying he hoped to spend the night shagging his fiancée. Draco himself lay sprawled out on top of the blanket he'd pulled over her, still dressed, one foot half off the bed, an arm under his head. She wondered if she could get his trousers off without waking him but before she could test out that idea, he stirred and propped himself up on one elbow.

"Hey," he said. "You're up."

"I am," Ginny said. "Nice room."

Draco ducked his head a bit self-consciously. "I don't really have any idea how to make a room look nice," he said. "My mum did that. I just asked the elves to paint it something that looked grown up. You can do whatever you want to it."

Ginny nodded and pointed to the fox. "The elves put that up?" she asked.

"Yeah," Draco admitted. "You can take it down, I just - "

"No," Ginny said. "I like it. Her."

She was fairly sure the fox was a vixen. Something about the gleam in the creature's eye. She tested a closed door and peered into an en suite that was bigger than her bedroom had been at the Burrow. The whole Gryffindor Quidditch team could have fit into the shower, and the freestanding copper tub filled her heart with lust. She flicked the lights on, grateful easy illumination, and began to pull her shirt off. Draco made a bit of a gurgling sound and she leaned back to peer at him where he still lay on the bed.

"I could use some help with this," she said, pulling at the strap of her bra. If she'd realized she were going to end up displaying it like this she'd have worn one a little fancier but, based on the tent in Draco's trousers, the worn, beige fabric of her brassiere wasn't a turn off.

"I, uh, I could do that," he said, the words more a stammer than speech.

She took a few steps back into the bedroom and turned so the clasp faced him, then let him stumble across the room to her unobserved. It took his three tries to get the hook undone and, too late, she remembered this one tended to get caught because the one of the hooks had gotten bent in the wash and she'd had to force it ever since.

"I had no idea these things were so tricky," Draco muttered as he finally got the eye to let go of the hook.

He dropped the bra to the floor where it lay, limp and frayed against the rich reds and golds of the oriental carpet and Ginny sighed at it for a moment before she smirked at Draco. "I like your shower," she said, "but I think I might need help scrubbing."

Draco had never been accused of being stupid. "I would hate for you to strain yourself reaching some spot I could easily wash," he said, and placed a somewhat tentative kiss along one shoulder.

The next kiss was less tentative, and the one after that hungry. The didn't make it to the shower until after, but Ginny noted that the rugs in the en suite were soft and thick and if the elves had picked them out, they had done a fabulous job.

Really fabulous.

She'd be sure to thank them once she had clothes on again.


	10. Chapter 10

Ginny rode the boats after a speech that had felt interminable. One year a renowned violinist had been invited to speak and had opted to just play for the departing students and their family. That sounded like it had been wonderful. The Ministry functionary who had spoken this year had been much less enjoyable than a concert would have been.

Much less.

Draco met her on the other side of the lake and held a hand out to help her from the boat. "Have fun rowing?" he asked.

"Could have been worse. At least we didn't have to go through a maze filled with hybrid beasts," Ginny said.

"That might have been a better to end things than that speech," Draco said. "At least you would have had a fighting chance."

She grinned at him, but her grin faded when she saw the flash of seriousness in his eyes. All around them students were climbing out of boats and laughing as the prepared to reunite with family after the ridiculous, watery end to their Hogwarts career, but he stood, his expensive shoes sinking where the edge of the lake had been trodden into thick mud by all the former students and their boats, and looked at her as if suddenly stricken.

"Draco?" she asked.

"It's just that patricide is right out," he said. "If it had been anyone else, but I just can't."

"It's over," she said, and despite all the people milling past them, they might as well have been alone for all the attention either of them paid to anyone else.

"He gave you that diary," Draco said slowly. "He didn't know what it was, of course, only that it was Dark, but Dark artifacts are always bad news and you were a… fuck, Ginny, You were eleven."

"And it's over," she said, "and I don't like to talk about it." She wished with all her heart that he would just stop. Tom Riddle was the nightmare she didn't expect to ever quite go away, but she'd survived and she knew, despite it all, that Draco had survived the man as well. That didn't mean she wanted to reminisce.

"And I was just… I was so _gleeful_ about it all," he went on, as if she hadn't spoken. "I was such a shitty little… I never stopped to think that - "

"Draco," she said, stopping him. "You were a shitty _twelve-year-old_ and you didn't do anything but… we need to get back over to where my parents and brothers are waiting before they get worried."

"Your brothers," he said, making a face. He still wasn't a fan. Well, she wasn't that fond of Lucius Malfoy either, for reasons she'd just been forced to recall. Family get-togethers were sure to be just a delight going forward but she'd put up with them to get the man at her side.

She looped an arm through his and said, "You can dote on me and watch Ron's face get redder and redder."

"You do know how to talk to a man," Draco said. They'd taken a dozen steps when he added, "I do like Percy, though."

Ginny stopped and the boy behind them, a Ravenclaw she didn't know, swore at her when he almost bumped into them. "Percy?" she asked, as the Ravenclaw went around and looked back with scathing look she ignored. "How long were you out in the sun waiting for that speech." She set a hand across his forehead. "Clammy?" she asked, as if checking for heat exhaustion. "Do you feel faint? Need to sit down?"

He pushed her hand away. "He was the only one who cared when you, the diary, that whole thing."

Ginny started walking again. "And you know this how?" she asked.

"I ran into him at the Ministry," Draco said, hurrying to catch up with her. "He informed me, in some detail, along with his thoughts on Potions import regulations and werewolf registration. He's for the former and against the latter, in case you were interested."

"I'm sorry," Ginny said. "So, so sorry. You have to have a meeting to get to, and tell him to write it all up and send it to you, otherwise he never stops."

"If it had been anyone but my father," Draco began again, but at her pointed glare he finally stopped.

"Dinner tonight?" she said.

He groaned and let her, at last, change the subject. "Granger. What did I ever do to deserve that?"

She looked up and spotted her parents, standing with George and Percy and Ron, Hermione's arm hooked through Ron's, and waved frantically at them. "Not just Hermione," she said. "Ron will be there too."

Draco pretended to pout. "It's as if you don't love me," he said.

"I know," she said. "But I do." Then she ran off, leaving him flabbergasted, and wrapped her arms around her parents and listened to the predictable fuss. George ruffled her hair and tried to slip some kind of novelty item down her robes as Draco made an attempt to commiserate with Ron about the long speech.

"I quite liked it," Percy said with a sniff as he took his glasses off and began to wipe them with a handkerchief. "I thought Under-Secretary Chato had some good insights into the philosophical underpinnings of the development of charm research and its applicability to modern education."

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco excused himself from the table to join Theo on the stone veranda. Ginny smiled at him, and Granger frowned, but he'd made nice about as long as he could stand. Theo handed him the Muggle fag and he took it with relief.

"Filthy habit," Theo said.

"I swear, I cannot stand that woman," Draco said. "If a smoke will get me through the rest of the night, that's better than telling her where she can shove her opinions about… what the fuck was she talking about again?"

Theo shrugged. "Damned if I know," he said. I stopped listening when she started to cite Goblin case law."

Draco looked back into the room. He'd instructed the elves to set the table with the most formal arrangement possible and, since none of them liked Granger, they'd been happy to oblige. He'd never seen so many forks at one place before, and he'd been to any number of formal dinners. Unfortunately, Granger knew the start on the outside and work in trick and his attempt at social intimidation had just made her smirk. Even Weasley hadn't seemed bothered by the excessive silverware and that made Draco feel like sulking.

Granger seemed to be holding forth still, lecturing them all on the _rules_ and _how things were done._ Ginny was holding her wine glass and nodding, Weasley was gazing at Granger with rapt adoration. Harry Potter seemed to be ignoring her in favor of asking Luna something.

Luna had arrived wearing a hat with giant feathers charmed to stay upright and hadn't taken it off. Granger seemed to get distracted fro her lecture by the way the purple feather danced around one of the crystal bobs in the chandelier and Draco controlled his snicker at the way Granger's eyes kept going to the top of the feather.

Watching her, Draco decided he was going to bribe Granger's departmental secretary to lose two-thirds of her paperwork. He doubted it would cost much, and the pleasure of seeing her get more and more frustrated as years went by and one of her bright ideas after another ended up accidentally in the wrong file or got jammed in a drawer no one could get open would be well worth the investment.

Pansy pushed her chair back and made what from anyone else would have been a polite excuse. Draco suspected she'd just said, "You're boring me, Granger, so I'm leaving."

When Pansy held the door open, he could hear Luna say, "So when are you and Pansy moving, Harry?"

"When are you and wonder boy moving?" Theo asked Pansy.

Pansy took the fag from his hand and took a long drag. "Three days," she said. "Harry got the idea we should hire landscapers into his head, and they're there now, putting in plants and making it look like we care about things like that."

"Do you?" Draco asked curiously. He'd never have pegged Pansy as one to move out to a rural village and hide away in a tiny cottage but she was doing just that.

"Anything would be better than working with Granger," she said. "The only downside to Harry is that they're friends." She made a show of shuddering. "It's like falling for someone and then discovering he has an aquarium filled with sea horses that he breeds or something."

Theo made a sound suspiciously like choking before he gasped out, "Sea horses."

"She's talking about some plan she's got to start up magical primary schools," Pansy said.

"Not a terrible idea," Draco said.

"Then you work with her," Pansy said.

Draco made a face. "Why do you hate me so?" he asked.

"I could give you a list," Pansy said, "but I'm too lazy to write that much." She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "I'm going to go grab Harry and escape the brightest witch before boredom makes me become one with your upholstery. We'll see you at the wedding, though if you put out snail forks for that, I expect snails."

"We had snails," Draco said.

Pansy looked at him. "OK, fine," he muttered. "Maybe the fruit forks were over the top, but dessert includes fruit."

"Which I will miss because we're leaving." She kissed Theo. "See you next week at the wedding."

. . . . . . . . . . .

After they apparated into the cottage, Harry put his hands over Pansy's eyes and made her go up the brick walkway blind.

"I'm going to trip and break my neck this way," Pansy said. "Is this your revenge, Potter?"

In answer, he took his hands off her eyes and let her look around at the herb beds that he had had the landscapers fill with just one flower. From every angle, the faces of pansies nodded and smiled up at them.

"Harry?" Pansy said uncertainly. "What is this?"

"Pansies," he said. "I had them fill every bed, front and back."

"I... why?" Pansy asked.

Harry cocked his head to the side and the hint of a smirk danced around the edge of his mouth. "I've found I rather like pansies," he said. "Pretty things. Aren't as popular as roses, maybe, but I think I prefer them to any other flower."

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco stood at the head of the makeshift aisle and waited for Ginny to appear. A gnome that had been missed in the garden degnoming Draco had opted not to volunteer for the day before glared up at him from under a bush; he twitched his fingers toward his wand and the creature, not completely stupid, disappeared. Ron had been ordered to guard the food, and he stood, somewhat sullenly, next to the long tables filled with things that Molly had been cooking for weeks. Trays and bowls and dishes covered every flat surface and just the thought of the woman's cooking made Draco salivate. She might be a poor, blood-traitor who had raised a son he particularly disliked, but she could certainly cook. He looked over at Theo, who stood by his side in his best dress robes, and muttered, "You do have the ring, right?"

"Relax," Theo said.

"It's a bit hard to relax in this company," Draco said. While Marcus Flint and Graham Montague lounged, their feet kicked out in front of them, though Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy had port-keyed in from the continent to see their only child get married, and though Pansy smirked at him from her place at Potter's side, the bulk of the guests were people who would have been happy to have seen him dead a scant year or two earlier. He might be running much of their world in secret from his study, but these people still hated him for things he'd done at sixteen. He's overheard some Weasley cousin berating Molly for 'allowing' her daughter to marry 'that horrible Death Eater boy.'

He'd had no idea Molly Weasley knew, much less used, the sort of language she unleashed upon the hapless guest and relative.

"It will be fine," Theo said. "The girl likes you, and, though I have no idea why, the mother likes you. "

"I like her food," Draco said.

"And you make her daughter happy," Theo said. "That might have something to do with it."

"I thought you said you had no idea why," Draco said.

"And you think I always tell the truth?"

"Cute."

Draco didn't have the chance to spend more time castigating Theo for his lack of honesty because Ginny chose that moment to appear. She had an unfortunate tiara on her head that he recalled had been loaned to her by a relative. He hoped she didn't plan on wearing it often. Other than that, however, she was perfection. The robes were plain and elegant in their simplicity and the light cream tint to the fabric set off the colour of her hair. She was fire and life and purity blazing her way to his side.

"Close your mouth," Theo hissed.

Draco went to shut his jaw, realized it was not hanging open, and spared a dagger glare for his best man. Theo just laughed at him and then she was at his side, her hand slipped into his, and the Ministry official had begun the ceremony.

Even years later if you asked Draco what he had about he wouldn't have been able to tell you. Ginny would regularly insist that he had indeed vowed to rub her feet every night, or that he had vowed to get up with the babies and let her sleep. All he could remember was the fire burning at his side, that she had agreed to be his, that he had promised to be hers, and that, with words that seemed unremarkable and flat when you considered how many things they changed, she was and he was and they were and it was done.

. . . . . . . . . .

Ginny had been afraid Luna would lose the ring, and then she had worried that she would fumble when she slipped it onto Draco's finger, and then she had worried she would open her mouth and the words 'I don't' would come out instead of 'I do.'

None of those things happened and instead she put her hand into his and they walked back up the aisle, past the faces of happy, and some less than happy, friends, and more than one gob-smacked cousin. "Happy?" he asked her.

"Devastated," she said, "but I'll console myself with that bathtub."

In answer, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.

The photographer hiding in the bushes caught that moment, and Ginny turned what she considered to be her best side to him as she exclaimed in seeming outrage, "What are you doing here!"

"This is a private ceremony," Draco said. "It's closed to the press."

"C'mon," the photographer said. "Just one shot of the happy couple!"

Fred and Ron both appeared from among the guests and, one on each side of the photographer, ushered him out of the yard with perhaps more vigor then was strictly necessary.

"Bastard," Ron said to Draco apologetically when he returned. "Sorry about that. I don't know how he got in here."

"No harm done," Draco said.

Ginny managed not to laugh.

The rest of the afternoon blurred together into well wishes and food grab on the run and a moment where she truly believed Draco planned to smear cake on her face. He didn't.

The food was good, the cake was more than good even if one layer sagged a bit and the whole thing ended up a bit lopsided as a result. And at last they were on the dance floor, not alone while everyone stared at them and she whispered dirty jokes instead of sweet nothings into Draco's ear and he tried to keep from laughing, but in the midst of a crowd, able to dance unnoticed, her head on his shoulder as he murmured not suggestions of things they could do in the bathtub she liked so much, but endearments so sentimental she doubted anyone would believe her if she ever repeated them. _"_ Malfoy?" people would ask. "That sneering cockerel? Said _that_?"

She looked up at the arrogant, pointed face. "Malfoy," she said.

"Malfoy?" he said back and she smiled. "What?" he asked.

"Thanks for deciding you wanted to be so ridiculously old fashioned as to woo me."

He tightened his hands on her. "Thanks for letting me," he said.

"Anytime," she said. She tipped her face back up to him and he brushed his lips across her mouth.

" _Any_ time?" he asked softly. "Even right now, behind the shed?"

She hit him and he laughed.

. . . . . . . . . .

 **epilogue**

"You said you'd get them," Ginny said, pulling the blanket over her head as if that would drown out the sound of the wailing babies. "When we first found out I was pregnant, you swore you'd get up every night."

Draco used words he'd later tell Scorpius not to say in front of his grandmothers. "You didn't tell me it was going to be twins," he said, when his stream of invective had no impact on his exhausted wife.

"Runs in my family," Ginny said. She kicked him. "And it's your turn."

Draco knew when he had lost, and he stumbled out of bed and to the crib sitting against the wall with both babies in it. As usual, Cassie had woken first but her wails had roused her brother and now the two screamed in harmony as their father fumbled with bottles and diapers, not sure which to grab first.

"Oh, for the love of Merlin," Ginny said. She sat up and reached her arms out. Just give me one and you feed the other."

Draco did as he was told.


End file.
